October 1, 2022 - May 14, 2023
Dreams & Memories
- The Museum will be closed Sunday, April 9 in observance of Easter.
This exhibition has been made possible by the generous support from Connecticut Humanities, the Department of Economic and Community Development, Connecticut Office of the Arts, HSB, The Aeroflex Foundation, The David T. Langrock Foundation, Mr. Andy Baxter, Mr. and Mrs. Robert D. Webster, Deborah & Roy Moore, Wayne and Barbara Harms, Bouvier Insurance, Mr. & Mrs. Jeb Embree as well as donors to the Museum’s Annual Fund.
Take a virtual tour of the exhibition…
The pandemic that transformed the world beginning in 2020 has prompted consideration of our communal future—as we look ahead, what are our dreams and aspirations, what memories and hopes guide our present and shape what comes next?
Dreams & Memories both manifest and generate ideas, perhaps no more powerfully than in art. This exhibition combines historic and contemporary art from the Florence Griswold Museum’s permanent collection to explore the themes of dreams and memories as multidimensional drivers of artistic creativity and expressions of powerful forces in American society.
Biologically, dreams and memories are linked—dreams are part of the process through which our experiences are translated into memories that encode and preserve the past. Dreams may soothe and restore, or can reflect our uncertainties and fears. Beyond the unconscious dream, by day people cultivate their ambitions by dreaming, and “dream up” future goals and desires.
Through works by such artists as Arthur Crisp, James Daugherty, Edmund Greacen, Mary Knollenberg, Willard Metcalf, Charles Ethan Porter, Winfred Rembert, and Bessie Potter Vonnoh, the exhibition will explore these ideas through themes such as reverie, surrealism, identity formation, religion, social action, historical memory, and the American dream.
