Collection Highlights Case: Folly Cove Designers

December 17, 2025 – February 1, 2026

CAM Green Campus
13 Poplar Street, Gloucester, MA

Overview

Rockport-born Eleanor O’Hearn Curtis (1910–2008) was working as a teacher in the Gloucester school system in the early 1950s when she enrolled in sculptor George Demetrios’s life drawing class. She subsequently took Virginia Lee Burton Demetrios’s five-month course, “Design & How,” and in 1952 was admitted as a full-fledged member of the Folly Cove Designers.

This spotlight exhibit showcased two of Eleanor Curtis’ designs, Round Robin (1954) and Cousins (1955). On view were the carved linoleum blocks used to print both designs, along with the corresponding inked prints and a small group of “homework” exercises Curtis completed during their development. These drawing exercises were a key feature of the Folly Cove Designers’ process, helping to refine a raw idea into a finished design.

Image credit: Eleanor Curtis (1910–2008), Round Robin, 1954, ink on linen, linoleum block print. Collection of the Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, MA. Gift of the Folly Cove Designers, 1970.