Creative Connecticut 375 Alexander Calder Philip Johnson Twain Mark Harriet Beecher Stowe Arthur Miller

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1 Creative Connecticut 375 years of cultural innovation Mark Twain Harriet Beecher Stowe Arthur Miller Alexander Calder Paul Newman Philip Johnson A n n i v e r s a r y! C O N N E C T I C U T' S th Qui transtulit sustinet Katharine Hepburn

2 Creative Connecticut A n n i v e r s a r y! C O N N E C T I C U T' S th Qui transtulit sustinet 375 years of cultural innovation 1842 Wadsworth Atheneum is considered to be the oldest public art museum in America. Almost 100 years later, museum director Chick Austin creates the first Surrealist Show and Picasso exhibition. Twain House in Hartford 1871 Mark Twain moved to Hartford and wrote many of his best know works including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Harriet Beecher Stowe lived the last 23 years of her life at Nook Farm as the neighbor of Mark Twain.

3 Florence Griswold opened her home to painters and created the Lyme Art Colony. Members included Childe Hassam, Henry Ward, and Willard Metcalf the vanguard of the Tonalist and American Impressionist movements Alden Weir established an art colony in Wilton and along with Childe Hassam participated in the Cos Cob art colony in Greenwich. Alden Weir studio and painting Renowned actor William Gillette built his dream retirement home in the form of a castle overlooking the Connecticut River Composer Charles Ives most creative period of his life started in Ives composed what some say was the first radical musical work of the 20th century Eugene O Neill became an acclaimed playwright beginning with the Pulitzer Prize winning Beyond the Horizon and continuing to The Iceman Cometh. The Monte Cristo Cottage in New London is the model for the setting of Long Day s Journey into Night. On the porch of Monte Cristo Cottage

4 1920s-1960s The Shubert Theatre in New Haven is called the birthplace of the hits because Broadway premiered theatrical productions that eventually achieved great success including South Pacific, Oklahoma!, The King and I, A Streetcar Named Desire and many more Artist Alexander Calder famous for the invention of the mobile lived in Roxbury. His Stegosaurus at Burr Mall in Hartford was done n s Connecticut native Katharine Hepburn began her career in the 1930s. The four-time Oscar winning actress moved to her family home in Old Saybrook in s -1950s Hartford resident Wallace Stevens is considered one of America s greatest poets. 1930s The Wadsworth Atheneum built the first modern museum in the United States and hosted avante garde painters, sculptors, playwrights and musicians under the innovative direction of Chick Austin.

5 1940s -present Arshile Gorky Arshile Gorky a seminal figure of Abstract Expressionism lived in Sherman until his tragic death in Many artists have settled in Connecticut including Jasper Johns, Sol LeWitt, Helen Frankenthaler, Cleve Grey, Josef Albers, and Alexander Liberman. Sol LeWitt Jasper Johns Alexander Liberman Arthur Miller s Actors, playwrights and regional theaters thrive in Connecticut. Theaters include the Ivoryton Playhouse, the Westport Country Playhouse, Long Wharf Theater and the Hartford Stage Company just to name a few. Paul Newman 1949 Philip Johnson built his Glass House in New Canaan in 1949 and reigned over modern architecture until his death in 2005.

6 1950s Landis Gores, architect Marcel Breuer, Elliot Noyes, John Johansen, and Landis Gores joined Philip Johnson in New Canaan. Elliot Noyes, architect Marcel Breuer, architect Ingalls Rink, Eero Saarinen, architect 1950s-1960s Connecticut underwent a postwar building boom with designs by noted architects including Eero Saarinen, Wallace Harrison, Paul Rudolph, Louis Kahn and others. Phoenix, Wallace K. Harrison, architect Wilde Building, Gordon Bunshaft, architect Yale Art Gallery, Louis Kahn, architect 1970s Yale School of Drama, under the innovative direction of Robert Brustein, produces a score of major talents including playwrights Wendy Wasserstein, Christopher Durang, Albert Innaurato and actress Meryl Streep present Connecticut resident Meryl Streep is widely regarded as one of the most talented actors of the modern era. She has received 16 Academy Award nominations and has won two, and 25 Golden Globe nominations, winning seven more nominations than any other actor in either award.

7 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and today Real Art Ways, Hartford Art museums and theaters continued to expand during the last 30 years. State artists have been supported by local arts councils that have grown into major organizations. This is just a small sampling of Connecticut s cultural landscape. ArtSpace, New Haven Silvermine Guild Arts Center, New Canaan Colt dome, Hartford Westport Country Playhouse, Westport Garde Arts Center, New London Lockwood-Mathews Mansion, Norwalk Long Wharf Theater, New Haven Lyman-Allyn Museum, New London Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield compiled by Robert Gregson Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism 2010