Newport Art Museum Will Welcome Four New Exhibitions This Winter

Heavily inspired by Narragansett Bay, Dondero leverages paint, ink, pastel and photographic images to visually expresses a cursory connection to nature, drawing inspiration from shifting factors such as temperature, humidity, and tides. The resulting work evokes a relationship to nature that is at once both personal to the artist, yet familiar to the viewer.

Dondero, who is a member of Imago Gallery in Warren, RI, is an award-winning artist who earned First Place in the category of prints/pastels at the Museum’s 2015 Newport Annual, and has received numerous accolades from institutions such as the Providence Art Club, Colorado’s Center for Fine Art Photography, California’s Museum of Anthropology, and New York’s foto Gallery. She holds an MAT from RISD, MFA from UMass Dartmouth, and BFA from Roger Williams University, and is professor of art at Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, MA.

Heavily inspired by Narragansett Bay, Dondero leverages paint, ink, pastel and photographic images to visually expresses a cursory connection to nature, drawing inspiration from shifting factors such as temperature, humidity, and tides. The resulting work evokes a relationship to nature that is at once both personal to the artist, yet familiar to the viewer.

Dondero, who is a member of Imago Gallery in Warren, RI, is an award-winning artist who earned First Place in the category of prints/pastels at the Museum’s 2015 Newport Annual, and has received numerous accolades from institutions such as the Providence Art Club, Colorado’s Center for Fine Art Photography, California’s Museum of Anthropology, and New York’s foto Gallery. She holds an MAT from RISD, MFA from UMass Dartmouth, and BFA from Roger Williams University, and is professor of art at Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, MA.

Blurring the lines between drawing and painting, Smith’s work blends intricate detail with a pointillism / stipple style to produce a maze of apparent and hidden imagery. Through this mix of styles, the artist aims to capture the essence of a respective culture’s important symbolism, drawing upon a pantheon of supreme beings, gods and goddesses in the process.

Smith is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island, summa cum laude, and a member and exhibiting artist at Wakefield’s Hera Gallery. His work has been featured in previous exhibits at the Newport Art Museum and Atrium Gallery on Providence’s Capitol Hill.

Blurring the lines between drawing and painting, Smith’s work blends intricate detail with a pointillism / stipple style to produce a maze of apparent and hidden imagery. Through this mix of styles, the artist aims to capture the essence of a respective culture’s important symbolism, drawing upon a pantheon of supreme beings, gods and goddesses in the process.

Smith is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island, summa cum laude, and a member and exhibiting artist at Wakefield’s Hera Gallery. His work has been featured in previous exhibits at the Newport Art Museum and Atrium Gallery on Providence’s Capitol Hill.

The gift of William Jaffe, Beckett’s Muse is a striking, sizable painting by Miriam Beerman, a 93-year-old artist born in Providence. Beerman went to the Rhode Island School of Design and has recently received the RISD lifetime achievement award. She exhibited her work at the Art Association of Newport (today’s Newport Art Museum) in 1965, and went on to a career as an important expressionist painter represented in major museum collections. The additional acquisition of Mark Freedman’s dramatic oil, New York Route 5, was made possible with funds from Dr. Joseph A. Chazan. Freedman, a wonderful Providence painter of gritty urban scenes, was part of Dr. Chazan’s NetWorks 2008 project.

Paintings: Recent Acquisitions will be on view February 6 – May 15, 2016, in the Museum’s Studio Gallery.

The gift of William Jaffe, Beckett’s Muse is a striking, sizable painting by Miriam Beerman, a 93-year-old artist born in Providence. Beerman went to the Rhode Island School of Design and has recently received the RISD lifetime achievement award. She exhibited her work at the Art Association of Newport (today’s Newport Art Museum) in 1965, and went on to a career as an important expressionist painter represented in major museum collections. The additional acquisition of Mark Freedman’s dramatic oil, New York Route 5, was made possible with funds from Dr. Joseph A. Chazan. Freedman, a wonderful Providence painter of gritty urban scenes, was part of Dr. Chazan’s NetWorks 2008 project.

Paintings: Recent Acquisitions will be on view February 6 – May 15, 2016, in the Museum’s Studio Gallery.

This year we are privileged to have Jay Coogan, president of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, as juror. Coogan is well known to Rhode Island art audiences; in addition to serving as provost for the Rhode Island School of Design for many years, he is an accomplished visual artist. His sculptural work includes public commissions in Providence, RI, Cambridge and Boston, MA, and he has exhibited at the Newport Art Museum. He holds a BA in Visual Arts, magna cum laude from Brown University and MFA in Sculpture from Hunter College, The City University of New York. In the 1970s Coogan attended St. George’s School in Middletown, where he was inspired by Newport’s great teacher, artist and long- time pillar of the Newport Art Museum, Richard Grosvenor. Coogan has come a long way since then, so this “homecoming” marks quite an exciting return.

This year we are privileged to have Jay Coogan, president of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, as juror. Coogan is well known to Rhode Island art audiences; in addition to serving as provost for the Rhode Island School of Design for many years, he is an accomplished visual artist. His sculptural work includes public commissions in Providence, RI, Cambridge and Boston, MA, and he has exhibited at the Newport Art Museum. He holds a BA in Visual Arts, magna cum laude from Brown University and MFA in Sculpture from Hunter College, The City University of New York. In the 1970s Coogan attended St. George’s School in Middletown, where he was inspired by Newport’s great teacher, artist and long- time pillar of the Newport Art Museum, Richard Grosvenor. Coogan has come a long way since then, so this “homecoming” marks quite an exciting return.