The Saco Museum’s major exhibition, “A Treasured Ten: A Decade of Collecting at the Saco Museum,” will feature a dazzling array of additions to the museum’s collections since the start of the millennium. Paintings by masters of the Hudson River School, rare and important furniture and silver by Nineteenth Century Saco artisans and a magnificent selection of folk art sculpture are among the highlights of this exhibition, on view July 5 through November 15.
Founded in 1866 as the York Institute, the Saco Museum has been a collecting institution from the very beginning. Among its first acquisitions were important paintings and early furniture that were made and used in Saco. Over the years the collection of fine arts, historical artifacts and natural history specimens became one of the finest in the region. Now in its third century, the Saco Museum has continued to collect actively, with many hundreds of remarkable objects entering the collection since the year 2000.
The outstanding artistic tradition of the Saco River Valley has always been a cornerstone of the museum’s collection. Connecting Maine’s coast to New Hampshire’s White Mountains, the Saco River carves a pathway for trade and tourism, as well as art and ideas. In this exhibition, magnificent landscapes by renowned White Mountains painters Albert Bierstadt, Alfred Thompson Bricher and Jesse Talbot provide a national context for the work of regional masters, such as Gibeon Bradbury and William S. Gookin. From fantastical scenes to sensitive portraiture, these paintings demonstrate the breadth of influence and subject matter embraced by Nineteenth Century American artists.
The history of fine craftsmanship in early 1800s Saco is also represented, with an exceptional chest of drawers and card table by the firm of Cumston & Buckminster, and a tall case clock and a selection of silver by Edward S. Moulton, both active in the 1810s. And several rare, early hand painted shop signs from businesses that were on Saco’s Main Street help to illustrate the town’s important role in the development of trade and industry in southern Maine.
Twentieth and Twenty-First Century traditions also find a place in the Saco Museum’s collection and in this exhibition. The museum’s growing collection of folk art sculpture will be represented with whimsical carvings by Adelard Cote and Bernier the Lumberman, both from the Saco/Biddeford area. Locally made quilts and a doll by Maryellen Roberge, who was the subject of a major exhibition in 2008, are included.
Many of these objects have never before been on public display, and several have been restored specifically for their debut in this exhibition.
The Saco Museum is at 371 Main Street (Route 1). For more information, 207-283-3861, extension 114, or www.sacomuseum.org .
