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A Lecture by Stephanie Gaskins, Dow Curator at the Ipswich Museum

The Ipswich Museum has the largest collection in the world of the work of Arthur Wesley Dow. Born in Ipswich, Dow spent several years studying art in France at the Academie Julien before settling in Ipswich in 1889. He worked under Ernest Fenellosa, curator of Japanese art at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Drawing on his knowledge of Japanese art, Dow created a popular teaching manual entitled Composition, published in 1899, which has been an important inspiration to many artists and craftsmen for over a century. In Composition, Dow outlines his philosophy of art, attempting to synthesize the best of Eastern and Western ideas. Dow was also a renowned teacher; he joined the faculty at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and then taught at Teachers College at Columbia University. In addition, he ran the Ipswich Summer School of Art in the 1890s and early 1900s.

The collection of the Ipswich Museum includes oil paintings, photographs, wood block prints and a large archive. The lecture will be held in the Dow Gallery of the Heard House at 54 South Main Street in Ipswich (Route 1A). Stephanie Gaskins serves on the board of the Cape Ann Museum and was a guest curator of Ipswich Painters at Home and Abroad, an exhibition held at the Cape Ann Museum in 1993. As the Dow Curator at the Ipswich Museum, she curates two to three exhibitions at the Ipswich museum annually. She is a past President of the Ipswich Museum and currently serves as Vice-president.

Image credit: Arthur Wesley Dow (1857-1922). Blue Dragon, 1894. Oil on canvas. Depicting the view from his studio across the marsh toward Plum Island. He painted this view many times in different light and time of tide. Image courtesy of the Ipswich Museum.