Ruth Reeves, one of two women who formulated the idea for the ‘Index of American Design,’ shown here in a 1938 photograph with several of the original watercolors. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Gallery Archives.

OLD LYME, CONN. – The Lyme Art Association will present a dual exhibition, “: Contemporary Artists of the Lyme Art Association and Cape Ann,” and “The Legacy of Cape Ann Artists,” a historic presentation of noted early Cape Ann, Mass. artists, drawn from a private collection, from February 22 through March 29.

Offering a contemporary connection, artists of the Lyme Art Association created scenes of meadows and marshes of the Connecticut River and Long Island Sound; artists who live in Gloucester, Cape Ann and Rockport, have captured their particular sea and landscapes.

Represented in the “Legacy” exhibition are their early mentors who, a century and a half ago, immortalized Gloucester harbor filled with fishing vessels surrounded by the rockbound coast; they include Gifford Beal, Aldro Hibbard, Ted Kautzky, Max Kuehne, Jonas Lie, Frederick Mulhaupt, Claire Shuttleworth, Paul Strisik, Anthony Thieme, Harry Vincent, Frederick Waugh and Stow Wengenroth. Many of their paintings will be on view for the first time.

In his book, Artists of Cape Ann: A 150 Year Tradition, Kristian Davies has written a colorful, fascinating history of America’s oldest art colony, the first such comprehensive chronicle. “For about two centuries, artists have been coming to Cape Ann, drawing a diverse roster of salon painters, folk artists, Luminists, Tonalists, Impressionists, Ashcan painters, magazine and children’s book illustrators and Modernists alike,” Davies wrote.

“Because of its geography, the light on Cape Ann offered a great array of contrasts,” Davies said. “Clear sunlight, dense fog, horrific storms, brilliant sunsets and hazy dawns seem to follow each other in rapid succession.”

Thus not all of the early images are nautical. Jonas Lie’s oil, “Cape Ann Street Scene,” is of white-washed village houses; changing seasons are captured by Harry Vincent in an oil, “Fall Colors” and by William Lester Stevens is an oil, “Fall Landscape.”

Continuing that redefinition are the exhibition’s contemporary Cape Ann, Mass. artists: Thomas A. Nicholas, NA, of Rockport and his son, T.M. Nicholas, Essex; Jonathan Hotz and John Terelak, Rockport; and Charles Movalli, Gloucester.

The Lyme Art Association is at 90 Lyme Street, just off I-95, Exit 70. For information, 860-434-7802.