The Ogunquit Museum of American Art (OMAA) launches its 2021 season with exhibitions that cover a variety of mediums and forms of artistic expression from painting to sculpture, found objects to photography. The museum opens May 1 with three exhibitions that continue through July 16: “One Hand Clapping: Jo Sandman,” “Remember the Ladies: Women Painters in Ogunquit, 1900-1950” and “Kahlil G. Gibran: The Surface and Below.”

The second half of the season starts July 30 with two new exhibitions and continues through October 31: “Life Streams: Alberto Rey, Cuban-American Artist” and “Art’s Ball: Wood & American Modernism, 1913-1936.”

In addition, four exhibitions will be open throughout the season, from May 1 through Oct. 31: “Light Southerly: Henry Strater in Verde Valley,” “The View from Narrow Cove,” “Charles Woodbury: Open Studio” and “In the Sculpture Park: Celeste Roberge, Chaise Gabion and Chair for Mining, Chronium.”

Ogunquit Museum of American Art is at 543 Shore Road, Ogunquit. Call 207-646-4909, or go to ogunquitmuseum.org for more information.

EXHIBIT DETAILS 

One Hand Clapping: Jo Sandman 

May 1-July 16

Sandman’s innovative artistic practice explores complex interconnections between the physical world and the structural underpinnings of abstraction. Working with a variety of materials, including traditional artist tools and supplies, found objects, industrial hard goods and soft goods, Sandman realigns the connections between painting, sculpture, drawing, photography and assemblage with highly personal imagery. Each outcome is a supposition about the natural world and her own self-study.  Sandman studied with Hans Hofmann and Robert Motherwell at Black Mountain College; as an artist and educator, she has taught at Wellesley College, The Art Institute of Chicago and Massachusetts College of Art and Design. In 2018, OMAA acquired 33 of her works through the Jo Sandman Legacy Project. In this exhibition organized by OMAA, the collection is presented for the first time alongside major pieces from public and private collections.

Remember the Ladies: Women Painters in Ogunquit, 1900-1950 

May 1-July 16

Women have long been the subject of art, traditionally depicted as objects of beauty, or engaged in domestic and practical arts. When regarded for their achievements as creators of fine art, women of the Ogunquit colony may be remembered as vanguards of American arts and culture throughout the 20th century. Trained at Charles Woodbury’s Summer School of Drawing and Painting and Hamilton Easter Field’s Summer School of Graphic Arts, female artists remain an integral part of Ogunquit’s standing as a leading artist collective and a major cultural influence throughout New England and the U.S. Gertrude Fiske, Nellie Knopf and Susan Ricker Knox—among the colony’s most prolific painters—became influential painters, teachers and policymakers.   

Titled for Abigail Adam’s 1776 letter to her husband John Adams, “…I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them…”, this exhibition examines the politics and public policies that engendered compulsory education, civic engagement and professional opportunities for women. Presenting a remembrance “more generous and favorable” to the noteworthy contributions of female artists in Ogunquit and New England, the exhibition is organized by OMAA in association with Darin Leese. 

Kahlil G. Gibran: The Surface and Below 

May 1-July 16

The first focused exploration of its kind, this exhibition examines a finite selection of paintings from Kahlil Gibran’s early and formative years as a Boston Expressionist. Working in encaustic and oil—alongside contemporaries including Mark Tobey, Karl Zerbe and Maud (Cabot) Morgan—Gibran’s visual meditations on mysticism and abstraction identify the immediacy, beauty and prescience of painting. The exhibition, organized by OMAA with guest curator Anthony Moore, includes 12 works of art painted between 1948 and 1952, most of which have never been publicly exhibited.