Now Showing at the Arkell

Please join us at the Museum for these current exhibitions.

Rising From The Sea:
The Art of Jay Hall Connaway

August 22, 2011 - May 20, 2012

Jay Connaway (1893-1970) painted in an era marked by the economic, political and social upheaval of World War I, the Great Depression and World War II. He painted in a bold Impressionist style and critics in the 1920s called him “the greatest sea painter since Winslow Homer.”

Under the patronage of Bartlett Arkell, president of Beech-Nut Corporation and founder of the Canajoharie Library and Art Gallery, Connaway painted in Brittany, France. Arkell later provided Connaway with a house on the remote island of Monhegan, Maine. This exhibition includes paintings inspired by both the coastline of Monhegan Island and the landscape of Vermont.

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American Paintings from the 1920s and 1930s
From the Arkell Collection

Opens August 26, 2011

American Artists in the 1920s and 1930s painted in a broad range of Realist, Impressionist and modern styles. Most of the paintings in this exhibition were purchased by Bartlett Arkell, the founder and first president of Beech-Nut Packing Company. Arkell began to collect paintings for the museum in the mid-1920s. This was a time when many American painters continued to work in styles influenced by the French Impressionists, while others were encouraged by Ashcan School artists to explore greater realism. During the 1930s, American artists became more interested in organic and geometric abstraction, but abstract art had a limited appeal with the public. Arkell favored Realist and Impressionist works that presented nostalgic views of America unchanged by industry - not avant-garde art. He acquired paintings by Impressionist and Ashcan School artists who had once shocked people with their controversial subject matter, but by the 1920s were hailed as America's greatest artists.

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Arkell’s Inspiration:
The Marketing of Beech-Nut and Art for the People

Permanent Exhibition

Bartlett Arkell’s collection of late 19th and early 20th century American paintings and the use of his collection to market Beech-Nut products is the focus of this exhibition. The exhibition will be on display in Arkell’s original gallery and in new exhibition spaces. Arkell’s collection of works by Winslow Homer, American Impressionists, and members of The Eight will be reinstalled in the restored original gallery.

Bartlett Arkell, founder of the Canajoharie Library Art Gallery and the first President of Beech-Nut Packing Company, encouraged his marketing staff to use his collection in their print ads. The result of this borrowing of images from oil paintings created by artists such as Edward Gay and J.G. Brown, was a series of ad campaigns that brought “art to the masses” and linked the virtues found in the paintings with Beech-Nut gum and food products. Museum visitors will have an opportunity to use images from the collection to create their own Beech-Nut advertisement to take home or mail as a postcard.

Exhibition funded, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.

 

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