Mattatuck Museum (4/26/2024)

Friday, April 26, 2024 (continued)

Another stop on the way to Rhode Island, Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, CT.

Mattatuck Museum (est 1877); 1987 moved to the former
Masonic Temple (1912, by W E Griggs with the limestone
façade) and the former corner gas station was replaced by
the new entrance and courtyard (1986, by César Pelli)

Mattatuck Museum is located on the
Green across from the Soldiers and Sailors
Monument (1884, by George E Bissell)

Part of the extensive button collection
assembled by Warrren F Kaynor for the
Waterbury Button Compnay; donated 1999

The buttons were arranged by varying themes

A wall of buttons

Connecticut's 5th District Congressional Art Competition 2024:

After the Rain (by Emily M
of Nonnewaug High School)

Outgrown (by Emily M); ha!
two favorites by the same artist

Ripening (by Jolene O of Bethel High School);
(I almost did not include this one)

Elevator lobby:

Mizan XII: Venetian Blue (2011,
by Steven Naifeh)

Suzanne Benton: Unmasked:

Rachel (Biblical) (1998)

Anna Julia Cooper (2020) memorializes a
woman born enslaved, yet went on the receive
Bachelor's and Master's degrees from
Oberlin College, and a PhD from Sorbonne (Paris)

A view down on the rooftop terrace

ReWork It: Women Artists on Women's Labor:

Fertilization Purse (2001, by Kate Kretz)

Sea Change: See Change:

Beluga Whale (2023, by Daniel Baxter)

Emperor Penguins (2023, by Daniel Baxter)

Vessel (20021, by Matthew Wood)

Chunks perhaps representing pieces from
Arctic and Antarctic icebergs in Vessel

Bird Gone, Fish In (2017, by Zoe Matthiessen)

Museum Collection:

Icebergs (1863, by Frederic Edwin Church)

The Luxury of Exercise (2009, by Claudia Demonte)

Lone at Sea (Adrift) (2022 by Boramie Ann Sao)

Cattle on Elton Farm (1873, by James Beard)

Stabile (1957, by Alexander Calder)

Pumpkin (yellow and black) and Pumpkin
(red and white) (2013, by Yayoi Kusama)

Mobile (1957, by Alexander Calder)

Carolyn Marks Blackwood: The Story Series:

#01 She stopped running. The beauty stopped her cold.
(2014); the artist adds a line of story to her photographs
and invites the viewer to supply his own narrative

History Gallery:

Owen-Illinois Glass Company Drink Cooler (c 1940)

Shop Sign: Rubber Boot (late 19C, by
Goodyear Shoe) and Charles Goodyear Chair
(undated, made with vulcanized rubber
and mother of pearl inlay)

Charles Goodyear Desk (1850-1851) has a rubber
table-top surface and was displayed at the
London Crystal Palace to showcase the variety
of uses of rubber

Nauga (c 1970) was a promotional creature of Uniroyal in
Naugatuck, CT, using the synthetic rubber Naugahyde

Rendering of Fortune, a Black man
enslaved by a bone surgeon, Dr Porter,
who saved Fortune's skeleton
at death in 1798 to study anatomy

In 1932, the skeleton was donated to the
museum and displayed as "Larry the Slave,"
and then sent to storage; in the 1990s as part
of the African American Oral History Project,
the skeleton was remembered and efforts made
to learn the history of the skeleton and to
eventually have it laid to rest in 2013

Museum Lobby: More from ReWork It: Women Artists on Women's Labor:

Housecoat VI (2021 by Natalie Baxter)

Spick & Span (2022, by Robyn Tsinnajinnie, Diné/Navajo)