The Newport Art Museum will welcome supporters to its annual Summer Art Party on Friday, July 10, marking the opening of two major exhibitions and raising funds for the museum’s school and education programs.
The gala, a staple of Newport’s summer season that drew more than 550 guests last year, coincides with the opening of “Sheila Isham: Between Worlds” and “Angel Otero: The Ocean Forgot Your Garden.” The exhibitions honor the legacy of the late Sheila Isham and celebrate the work of Angel Otero, two artists who, though separated by generation and geography, share a commitment to experimentation and to turning material into metaphor.
“These two exhibitions speak to each other in remarkable ways,” said Harry Philbrick, executive director of the Newport Art Museum. “Sheila Isham spent a lifetime pushing painting toward the spiritual and the unseen, while Angel Otero is reinventing what a painting can be, materially, emotionally, and personally. Presenting them together lets visitors experience the full arc of abstraction’s power, from a singular voice of the postwar era to one of the most compelling artists working today.”
“Sheila Isham: Between Worlds” brings together rare and previously unexhibited works from 1968 to 2004, offering a fresh look at one of the most original voices in postwar American art. Isham approached painting as a spiritual discipline, transforming color, gesture and material into sites of meditation and discovery. In “Angel Otero: The Ocean Forgot Your Garden,” Otero, who was born in Puerto Rico and is based between Puerto Rico and New York, explores the Atlantic as both a physical and emotional landscape shaped by movement, history and connection.
The Summer Art Party, the museum’s signature fundraising event, begins at 6 p.m. and offers guests a first look at both exhibitions. Proceeds will support the Museum School and education programs, with the evening highlighting a new fund, the Helena Sturtevant Education Society. The fund is named for the pioneering artist and educator who directed the museum’s art school from its founding in 1913 into the 1940s, and it will provide year-round and summer scholarships for children and adults, support teaching artists and fund equipment, supplies and community arts exhibitions.
“Helena Sturtevant believed that art should be available to everyone, she welcomed students from the wharfs of Newport and the farms of Middletown alongside aspiring fine artists,” Philbrick said. “Establishing this fund in her name ensures that her vision continues to shape the Museum School for generations to come.”
Gala tables and individual sponsor tickets are no longer available online, but a limited number of cocktail reception tickets remain. Guests can also support the museum through a live auction, paddle raise and raffle, the last of which features a three-night luxury getaway to the White Barn Inn & Spa in Kennebunk, Maine, donated by Heritage Restaurant Group. The raffle is open to the public, with the drawing held the evening of the event. Tickets and details are available at newportartmuseum.org/events/summer-art-party-2026.
“Sheila Isham: Between Worlds” will be on view July 10 through Feb. 28, 2027, and “Angel Otero: The Ocean Forgot Your Garden” will run July 10 through Jan. 10, 2027, at the Newport Art Museum, 76 Bellevue Ave.
Founded in 1912, the Newport Art Museum is one of the oldest continuously operating art museums and schools of its kind in the country. Its campus on Bellevue Avenue includes the landmark John N.A. Griswold House, a National Historic Landmark designed by Richard Morris Hunt. More information is available at newportartmuseum.org.
