art museums Archives - Connecticut Art Trail

Experience Live Music in an Exceptional Setting
The LIVE @AMP concert series brings an eclectic lineup of performances to AMP’s unique setting, offering something for everyone. Whether you’re a fan of rock, jazz, pop, or soul, LIVE @AMP has a performance for you.

AMP’s spacious, renovated mill gallery offers an artistic club atmosphere like no other. Its centerpiece is the incredible indoor mural—120 feet long and five stories high—that celebrates American workers on a grand scale. With the mural as the backdrop to the show and three tiers for viewing and mingling, concert-goers have an exceptional experience that fuses live music with collaborative art.

𝗧𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗟𝗜𝗩𝗘 @𝗔𝗠𝗣 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘀: Torrington Savings Bank, the Magnifico family, and Elyse Harney Real Estate

Upcoming Events
Tickets for LIVE @AMP are available online at Eventbrite and at the door.

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𝗦𝗲𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄!

About the Concert Venue

About the Exhibition: Environmental threats and climate change are urgent matters of concern at Jesuit universities, where conversations on this topic often take place in reference to two documents by Pope Francis: Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home (2015) and the 2023 update Laudate Deum. Artists play an indispensable role in our collective response to climate change. To See This Place: Awakening to Our Common Home, curated by Al Miner and David Brinker, will present work by Athena LaTocha, Mary Mattingly, and Tyler Rai, three contemporary artists whose outlook resonates with the themes of Laudato Si’ and Laudate Deum. Embodying a breadth of personal, geographic, and cultural backgrounds, the three artists create works strongly associated with a sense of place, whether specific or imaginary. They employ media as diverse as photography, sculpture, video, and painting, and often incorporate materials sourced from particular locales. Yet the artists draw forth broader themes from this particularity, critiquing political and economic systems that perpetuate destructive self-interest and drawing attention to people who have been marginalized and historically excluded or harmed. The works are artistically compelling yet can inspire us to creativity and boldness in our efforts to address climate change. This exhibition will open at Saint Louis University’s Museum of Contemporary Religious Art in Fall 2025.

This event forms part of the Edwin L. Weisl, Jr. Lectureships in Art History, funded by the Robert Lehman Foundation. The conversation will also be livestreamed on The Quick Live. Click here to register for a reminder.

Image: Mary Mattingly, Saltwater, 2022, chromogenic dye coupler print. © Mary Mattingly, courtesy of Robert Mann Gallery

Suzanne Chamlin, Associate Professor of Studio Art and an artist whose own practice focuses on landscape, will offer her reflections on the paintings on view in the exhibition Dusk & Dawn: Tonalism in Connecticut on Friday, January 31 at 12 noon in the Bellarmine Hall Galleries. Space is limited.

(Note: Professor Chamlin’s work was featured in a 2024 exhibition in the Bellarmine Hall Galleries; click here to learn more!)

About the Exhibition: This exhibition explores Tonalism in the United States from the 1880s to the early 20th century, through artists from the Northeast such as George Inness, John Henry Twachtman, and John Francis Murphy. Tonalism is a transitional movement that grew out of and reacted to the Hudson River School of painting and laid the groundwork for modernism. Evocative landscapes, evoking a spiritual connection to the natural world, often painted from memory, are the primary genre of this movement. The more than fifty artworks in this exhibition are drawn from private and institutional collections.

Image: J. Alden Weir, Connecticut Hilltops, ca. 1900, oil on panel. Private collection, Connecticut

Our spring 2025 Art in Focus series begins with a piece from the new exhibition Dusk & Dawn: Tonalism in Connecticut! , or online via The Quick Live.

Image: John Francis Murphy, Sleepy Hollow, 1885, oil on canvas. Private collection, CT

Join our Museum Educator in person for our fall Art Party! Attendees will enjoy relaxing tutorials, while viewing the Ink & Time: Eurpoean Prints from the Wetmore Collection exhibit in the Bellarmine Hall Galleries. Art supplies will be provided!
Please note: This event is in-person only and will not be streamed. Seating is limited–please register in advance.

Join us to celebrate the opening of Ink and Time: European Prints from the Wetmore Collection on Thursday, September 26! Exhibition curator Michelle DiMarzo, PhD, will present an opening lecture at 5 p.m. in Bellarmine Hall’s Diffley Board Room.

About the Exhibition: This exhibition presents a group of woodcuts, engravings, and etchings from the late 15th through late 18th centuries drawn from the Wetmore Collection at Connecticut College. The collection was assembled in the early 20th century by New London, CT native Fanny Wetmore, and bequeathed to the College in 1930.
Although little is known of Wetmore herself, her collecting activities place her within a tradition dating back to the rise of printmaking in early modern Europe. The surging production of prints by the beginning of the 16th century represented a sea change for both artists and consumers. For artists, prints provided additional revenue, increased their personal fame, and offered greater latitude for experimentation outside the traditional patronage structure. For consumers, prints represented access to visual art on an unprecedented scale; even those who would never have been able to commission an independent work from a great artist could now readily obtain an engraving or an etching. Prints were easily transported, could be pasted up on walls or into albums, and even large collections of them took up relatively little room. And, with the rise of reproductive printmaking, even geographically distant or physically inaccessible artworks could be added to the collector’s “paper museum.”

This exhibition is the second in the Museum’s history to have been co-curated with Fairfield University students, and has been supported by generous funding from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

Learn more at the website here. To register for the livestream of this event, click here.

Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait Etching at a Window, 1648, etching, drypoint, and burin. Courtesy of the Wetmore Collection, Connecticut College

On Tuesday, October 8 at 5 p.m., Arturo Lindsay, D.A., Artist and Professor Emeritus of the Department of Art and Art History at Spelman College will present a lecture entitled To See Is to Know: Children of Middle Passage in the Quick Center for the Arts, Kelley Theatre.(This event will also be livestreamed on thequicklive.com – click here to register for a reminder!)
Two works from the Children of Middle Passage series form part of the exhibition Sacred Space: A Brandywine Workshop and Archives Print Exhibition (Walsh Gallery, September 27 – December 21, 2024). For more information on the exhibition, click here.
To see is to know. But how can we know the unseen – the histories, the stories, the names of a people that were undocumented or erased?
Arturo Lindsay, 2010
I asked myself that question late one evening as I looked at the sun setting behind the hills on the bay of Portobelo. The view from my studio faces the ruins of a dock that was, at one time, the first encounter with tierra firme for many weary, shackled and enslaved black feet whose journey began months earlier in Africa.
The setting sun in Portobelo reflects off the cerulean blue sky and puffy white clouds onto the still waters of the bay producing a rather unique effect of light that seemingly glows from beneath the surface of the water. I wondered that evening … could this light be the souls of the children who perished at sea?
The following morning, I began imagining and imaging the anonymous faces of the children who perished during the middle passage of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
So began my journey to see their faces, to hear their stories, their names and their laughter. Through the magical rituals of seeking, seeing and imaging that we call Art, I collaborated with poet Opal Moore and jazz musician Joseph Jennings to create a series of prints, drawings and performance art rituals that provided some answers.”

This event is generously co-sponsored by the Arts Institute, the Departments of Visual and Performing Arts and History, and the programs in Black Studies and LatinX, Latin-American and Caribbean Studies.
Image: Arturo Lindsay, Umar of Segou, 2001, offset lithograph. Lent by the Brandywine Workshop & Archives © Arturo Lindsay
Please note that only 2 tickets may be reserved per order. If you have questions, please contact museum@fairfield.edu.

The Connecticut Art Trail is pleased to announce its expansion to 24 member museums and cultural sites in 2024 with the addition of Eastern Connecticut State University’s Art Gallery (Eastern Art Gallery). Additionally, The Carousel Museum and Five Points Arts join as affiliate members. The expansion brings new opportunities for residents and visitors to participate in the Trail’s unique Passport program — providing access to rich cultural and arts experiences throughout the state.

The Eastern Art Gallery has been the university’s on-campus cultural incubator for four decades. The museum features exhibitions of contemporary art intended to inspire students, faculty, and the community and has dedicated itself to advancing the school’s public liberal arts mission. Eastern Art Gallery provides exhibition programming with depth and relevance to multiple disciplines and a diverse campus and community audience.

“We are thrilled to announce Eastern Art Gallery as the 24th member of the Connecticut Art Trail and sixth location in eastern Connecticut,” said Carey Mack Weber, President of the Connecticut Art Trail and the Frank and Clara Meditz Executive Director at the Fairfield University Art Museum. “Eastern Art Gallery and the university are tremendous partners in championing our state’s incredible creative and cultural spaces. Also, the addition of The Carousel Museum and Five Points Arts as affiliate members further diversify the cultural landscape available to all Connecticut Art Trail Passport holders.”

The Art Trail’s expansion signifies an unwavering commitment to making art accessible to everyone. For $35 art enthusiasts can purchase a Passport at ctarttrail.org or a member museum. Good for the year, the Passport provides one-time admission to each of 24 locations – 24 museums and the two affiliate members. This affordability aligns perfectly with the rising trend of “third spaces” – welcoming environments outside of home and work where individuals can connect, relax, and engage in enriching low-cost or no-cost activities. With more than two dozen unique destinations to explore, the Connecticut Art Trail offers a tremendous opportunity for residents and visitors to tap into accessible cultural experiences in every corner of Connecticut.

Trail explorers can gain more than an enriching experience by visiting Connecticut Art Trail museums and cultural sites. With every sticker collected at a participating museum, Trail explorers are one step closer to being entered in a grand prize drawing. Collect all 24 unique stickers and drop the completed Passport off at your final museum destination to be eligible for an overnight stay for two at the Delamar West Hartford — complete with a couples massage.