ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Director’s Favorites: 1999–2015
Stitzer Family Gallery
Celebrating Director Douglas Hyland and his 16 years of distinguished achievement at the New Britain Museum of American Art. The inaugural exhibition in our new 3,000 sq. ft. Stitzer Family Gallery will highlight some of the many works acquired during Director Douglas K.S. Hyland’s tenure at the NBMAA. Over the last 16 years, Hyland has overseen the Museum’s acquisition of over 6,000 objects, growing the collection from 4,500 to over 14,000 works that span all periods and media including paintings, sculptures, photographs, and illustrations. Hyland’s selection of his favorite objects for this show reveals the diversity of artists, subject matter, and genre collected in the last 16 years. They also reflect acquisitions emanating from many fruitful relationships with artists and collectors cultivated by Hyland over the years. On view will be works from the collections of Frederick and Joan Baekeland, Joel Davis, the late Charles Goss, Dr. Paul Kanev, Ellen Wineberg, Ronald Vance on behalf of the George Deem Estate, the late Rita Heimann, M. Stephen and Miriam Miller, Judith O’Rourke, the late Deborah Pfeiffenberger, Lindsley Wellman and the late Judith Vance Weld Brown, Linda Cheverton Wick and Walter Wick, and Douglas and his wife Tita. The exhibition will also provide a glimpse into the selections of the Acquisitions & Loan Committee and Hyland’s purchases through the Director’s Discretionary Fund. Highlights will include Sandy Kinnee’s The Dozen Kimono, 88DK, William T. Wiley’s The War Your After Durer, 2009–2010, and Matt Vis and Tony Campbell’s The Raft, 2010. While it is impossible to include everything, this representative sampling will serve as a tantalizing window into the growth of the collection over the last 16 years.