Downtown Campus CAM Green Campus

Boston Globe: The art of Virginia Lee Burton and this year’s Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize winners

Born in 1909, Virginia Lee Burton, a designer, dancer, and printmaker, lived and worked on Cape Ann, and founded and led an artist group called the Folly Cove Designers, a group of mostly local women focused on block print work. 

Burton is perhaps best known for her children’s books including “The Little House”, which explores seasonal and cyclical change, and “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.” In “Folly Cove Sketches: Remembering Virginia Lee Burton”, June Adler Vail, a professor emerita at Bowdoin, and Burton’s great niece, details her relationship to her great aunt and to the place she made her home and art, with warmth and clarity, presenting a place of both magic creative crackle and disciplined work. 

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/10/20/arts/art-virginia-lee-burton-this-years-ruth-lily-poetry-prize-winners/

The Cricket- New Folly Cove Designers Program Opens at the Cape Ann Museum

During their three decades in operation, they participated in 16 museum exhibitions and supplied designs to well-known wholesalers and retailers including Lord & Taylor, R. Schumacher, and Skinner Silks. 

The Cape Ann Museum opened a new and expanded exhibition on the acclaimed Folly Cove Designers, made world famous by their leader, designer and author Virginia Lee Burton Demetrios.

The exhibition, Designed & Hand-Blocked by the Folly Cove Designers, will explore the origins of the internationally known group and their unique place in the American Arts & Crafts movement during the first half of the 20th century. It will also spotlight the accomplishments of individual designers and the legacy of the group. 

https://www.thecricket.com/calendar/library_and_museum/new-folly-cove-designers-program-opens-at-the-cape-ann-museum/article_48b601f4-446e-11ed-a69e-57c3212db42f.html

Art Daily: ‘Designed & Hand-blocked by the Folly Cove Designers” opens at Cape Ann Museum

In early October, the Cape Ann Museum will open a new and expanded exhibition on the acclaimed Folly Cove Designers, made world famous by their leader, designer and author Virginia Lee Burton Demetrios. The exhibit draws from the museum’s own collection as well as from other repositories in the region and private collections. 

“Of the renowned artists who created lasting Cape Ann legacies, the Folly Cove Designers were foremost among them,” said Oliver Barker, the Museum’s director. “Their unique designs resonated locally and nationally, and their visionary leader, Virginia Lee Burton Demetrios, cultivated a strong group of predominantly women who have had a lasting imprint on textile and graphic design today. We are thrilled to offer this expanded exhibition so visitors can learn more about these designers and their important place in history.”

https://artdaily.com/news/150533/Designed—hand-blocked-by-the-Folly-Cove-Designers-opens-at-Cape-Ann-Museum#.ZB8OhXbMKUl

Stay Connected

Downtown Campus

27 Pleasant Street
Gloucester, MA 01930

978-283-0455

Open Tuesday – Sunday, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. unless otherwise indicated.

View Campus

CAM Green Campus

13 Poplar Street
Gloucester, MA 01930

Closed for the season except for special programming or appointments.

View Campus

Quick Links

Exhibitions

Events Calendar

Collections

Learn

About

Press

Contact Us

Join & Give

Reservations

Memberships

Make a Gift

Store

Quicklinks