Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Current Exhibitions
The Walker Sisters and Collecting in Victorian Boston
- Oct 14, 2007 – Aug 24, 2008
- Shaw Ruddock Gallery
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The Walker Sisters and Collecting in Victorian Boston honors the Bowdoin College Museum of Art's founders with an installation of compelling, diverse, and sometimes unexpected art that they donated to the museum. In keeping with standards of the Victorian and Aesthetic movements, Mary Sophia and Harriet Sarah Walker began collecting an array of art and artifacts in the 1870s with which to decorate their home, historic Gore Place in Waltham, Massachusetts. The range of work in their collection reflects the rise of art patronage in Boston, whose social circles considered it a civic duty to support the arts. Cultural leaders and museum advocates believed that educating and inspiring artisans and designers would elevate the aesthetics and production standards of the entire nation. This exhibition showcases not only their collection of art, but household objects which, often decorated with considerable handiwork, were elevated to a level of art. These objects were combined with world art to create domestic spaces valued for their artfulness. The global nature of the Walkers' art interests and collecting suited the needs of an educational institution. Ancient glass, Persian armor, American bronzes, European miniatures and pastoral landscapes were included in the Walker sisters' bequest. This exhibition, including generous loans from other American museums, also suggests the objects' original context–a stylish Victorian interior.
