Discovering the “New World”: Maps & Sea Charts from the Age of Exploration

There is a time honored fascination with maps and sea charts.  The new exhibition at the Bruce Museum is featuring maps to be admired... not for navigation!

This exhibition features more than thirty maps and charts dated between 1511 and the 1757. The maps — woodcuts or metal-plate engravings, many with original hand-applied color — represent Renaissance-period attempts by European ateliers to edify their clientele by revealing our "new" hemisphere and its approaches, as discoveries and claims came ashore from those daring enough to pack their sea bags and head for the unknown.

Today, we live in routine harmony, with cartography: on television and the Web; in newspapers, books and magazines. Satellite maps signify weather; detail maps illustrate locales of crucial events; GPS screens send us, often correctly, to new locales. On land, at sea, and in the air—digitized geography helps deliver goods and people everywhere, often without human intervention.

It was not always so. More than five hundred years ago, two European empires began daringly (and competitively) seeking the most efficient seaborne routes to the riches of Arabia and The Orient—Spain sailing west; Portugal sailing east. Mapmakers back home (nearly all landlubbers happy to sit by the fire) scrambled to gather the latest explorers' reports to enable them to draw up-to-date maps, print them as separate sheets, and sell them largely to the wealthy as bound atlases—massive compendia that glorified leather-filled libraries and enriched cultural reputations.

But much of the news sent home was erroneous, owing to imperfect navigation, honest misreadings of reality, or deliberate misrepresentations. (As he wandered around the Caribbean Sea, for example, Columbus believed he had found India.) Altogether, these factors make historic "New World" maps a fascinating study in geographic and human progress—and occasional regression.

The Bruce Museum is  open Tuesday - Sunday 10 am - 5 pm, Doors close 1/2 hour before closing, and the last admission is at 4:30 pm. For additional information call 203-869-0376 or visit https://brucemuseum.org.

For area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

Bruce Museum Store to Host Special Holiday Shopping Night

The Bruce Museum will hold a special holiday shopping night at their Museum store next Thursday, November 13 from 4:00 to 9:00 p.m. Admission to the Museum is not required to visit the Museum shop.

People like to shop at the Bruce Museum Store because they carry unique things in many different categories. Chances are you’ll find something for everyone on your list somewhere in the shop.  The special holiday shopping night at the Museum on Thursday, November 13 will include  complimentary wine and cheese in addition to a rare evening shopping opportunity at the Museum.

The Museum has extended its regular store hours to facilitate holiday shopping throughout the season.
From now until Christmas, the store will be open on Mondays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. (December 22, 10
a.m. to noon) and Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

The Bruce Museum Store is located in the lobby of the Museum at One Museum Drive in Greenwich.  For additional information, call the Bruce Museum at (203) 869-0376 or visit the website at https://brucemuseum.org.

For area information visit www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

Being, Nothingness and More: Roz Chast Beyond the New Yorker at the Bruce Museum

The Bruce Museum located on One Museum Dr. in Greenwich is presenting a new exhibiton of 30 works by the well known Roz Chast.  A highlight of this exhibition will be examples of of Chast's iconic work from The New Yorker magazine, as well as prints and drawings from other projects. Also on display will be tapestries and painted eggs in the pysanky tradition decorated with the artist’s signature images. This exhibit runs through October 19.

Roz Chast
Painted Egg
© Roz Chast

Roz was born in Flatbush Brooklyn and graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her cartoons first began appearing in New York City in publications includingThe Village Voice.  

Since the late 1970s, her work has been featured frequently in The New Yorker, and in 1986 her work was featured on the cover of that magazine for the first time.

Roz Chast
Yes - No - MaybeTextile
© Roz Chast

She has written or illustrated more than a dozen books, includingUnscientific Americans, Parallel Universes, Mondo Boxo, Proof of Life on Earth, The Four Elementsand The Party After You Left: Collected Cartoons 1995–2003 (Bloomsbury, 2004). In 2006, Theories of Everything: Selected Collected and Health-Inspected Cartoons, 1978–2006 was published, collecting most of her cartoons from The New Yorker and other periodicals.

Roz Chast
Peas and CarrotsTextile
© Roz Chast

Her most recent book, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant (published in May), chronicles her relationship with her parents as they each approached the end of life.

The Bruce Museum is open Tuesday - Saturday 10 am - 5 pm, Sunday 1 pm - 5 pm, Doors close 1/2 hour before closing, and the last admission 4:30 pm.  For more information about the Bruce Museum visit www.brucemuseum.org

For area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

In the Dark at the Bruce Musuem

The dark is a place of mystery. Sometimes scary, always intriguing, the darkness inspires the imagination and encourages exploration.

Darkness is also a natural evolutionary selective pressure that has caused plants and animals to adapt to dark ecosystems like caves, the forest and desert at night, and underneath the ground.

In the Dark: Animal Survival Strategies, on view through April 13 at the Bruce Museum, in Greenwich on One Museum Drive invites visitors to explore different environments of darkness and the unique life forms that inhabit them through a combination of hands-on and whole-body interactives, specimens and walk-through dioramas.

Since prehistoric times, humans have sought to understand the function of darkness and have invented ways to change it. With this immersive, entertaining and family-friendly exhibition that explores four environments – fragile caves, deep soil, and the forest and desert at night – people of all ages will discover how animals adapt to living in the dark and learn how we can help preserve fragile worlds without light.

March Programs

Look & See: In the Dark!

Wednesday, March 12; 12:30 – 1:15 pm

A program especially designed for children ages 3-5 years and their adult caregivers, who will explore the Museum’s exhibition through hands-on experiences, stories and more. Children will explore the exhibition and then make their own animal of the dark! $5 for members and $7 for non-members per child, per class. Parents/guardians are free. Please make reservations by calling the Museum at 203 869-0376.

Animals of the Dark Family Day

Sunday, March 30; 1:00 – 4:00 pm

Explore the exhibition to find out which animals survive best at nighttime! Make your own night-creature crafts in the workshop! At 2:00 pm and again at 4:00 pm, Live Night Creatures with animal specialist Rob Mies from the Organization for Bat Conservation, who will teach us all about some animals that live in the dark such as owls, bats and sloths. All activities are suitable for students of all abilities ages 5 years and up. Free with Museum admission.

About the Bruce Museum: Explore Art and Science at the Bruce Museum, located at One Museum Drive in Greenwich, Connecticut. The Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm and Sunday from 1 pm to 5 pm; closed Mondays and major holidays. Admission is $7 for adults, $6 for students up to 22 years, $6 for seniors and free for members and children under 5 years. Individual admission is free on Tuesday. Free on-site parking is available and the Museum is accessible to individuals with disabilities.  For additional information, call the Bruce Museum at (203) 869-0376 or visit the website at www.brucemuseum.org.  For area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

Oysters, Pearls of Long Island Sound at The Bruce Museum

Found in estuaries around the world, oysters play a significant role in ecosystems and economies. These bivalve mollusks have sustained Native Americans and created waterside cultures. The Long Island Sound’s native oyster, the Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica), is a keystone species in the local environment, providing critical habitat and food for many other species, recycling nutrients, cleaning the water as it feeds, and driving an industry. Its value lies in these worthy attributes rather than in its potential for jewels. Like other true oysters, the Eastern oyster rarely produces a pearl. If it does make one, the pearl lacks the lustrous quality of those produced by pearl oysters, which are in a different family.

The Bruce Museum celebrates the Eastern oyster in the exhibition Oysters, Pearls of Long Island Sound, running through March 23, 2014.

The exhibition will explore the science and history of the Eastern oyster in Long Island Sound, examining how its nutritional and commercial values have made the Eastern oyster a popular commodity for residents along the Sound for eons.

 Native Americans harvested oysters from mile-long natural beds and collected individual oysters that were up to a foot long. By the early 1800s, the natural beds had become depleted and oysters were cultivated on artificial beds.

The oyster industry was a powerful force in the local economy by the end of the 19th century. However, overfishing, pollution, natural disasters, and disease brought about a decline and the industry was seriously threatened through the early to mid-20th century.

In recent years, the oyster trade has experienced resurgence as a result of improved aquaculture techniques and oysters’ popularity among food connoisseurs who enjoy their distinctive flavor, which varies with each local environment.

Organized with the assistance of scientists and historians and developed in cooperation with the Town of Greenwich Shellfish Commission, Oysters, Pearls of Long Island Sound features hands-on, interactive displays, videos, specimens of bivalves from around the world, and historical objects that appeal to all ages. Objects from the Bruce Museum collection are supplemented by loans of shells, oystering tools, food-related items, and boat models from local collectors including oysterman Norm Bloom and institutions such as the Yale Peabody Museum, Rowayton Historical Society, National Gallery of Art, Grand Central Oyster Bar, and Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s Milford Laboratory.

Complementing the exhibition will be a science lecture series in the fall and a history lecture series in the winter in addition to a variety of programs suitable for all ages.

About the Bruce Museum

Explore Art and Science at the Bruce Museum, located at One Museum Drive in Greenwich, Connecticut. The Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm and Sunday from 1 pm to 5 pm; closed Mondays and major holidays. Admission is $7 for adults, $6 for students up to 22 years, $6 for seniors and free for members and children under 5 years. Individual admission is free on Tuesday. Free on-site parking is available and the Museum is accessible to individuals with disabilities.  For additional information, call the Bruce Museum at (203) 869-0376 or visit the website at www.brucemuseum.org.  For area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

Inside the Artists’ Studios at the Bruce Museum

If you have ever wished you could observe artists engaged in the process of creation, Inside the Artists’ Studios presented by the Bruce Museum on One Museum Drive in Greenwich allows you to explore the individual investigations and analyses of four artists through their paintings, prints, photographs and three-dimensional miniature constructions.  This exhibit runs through March 9 and features a Guide-by-Cell Audio Tour that is free of charge and may be accessed simply by using your cell phone. 

The artists participating are well known and bring special skills to this exhibit.

Perspective Box
Jimmy Sanders (American, b. 1963) Perspective Box, 2007
Wood, oil paint, 28 x 36 x 28 in.
New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT Photo courtesy of Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York 

Jimmy Sanders, for example  has been influenced by the work of 17th-century Dutch painters, most notably in his Perspective Box, Studio in Florence, which he modeled after his own Florentine studio. Sanders traveled in Europe in the late ‘90s and, after seeing Hoogstraten’s A Peepshow with Views of the Interior of a Dutch House (c. 1655-60; The National Gallery, London), was inspired to create a contemporary version of this Old Master creation.

Lori Nix Studio
Lori Nix (American, b. 1969) Lori Nix Studio, 2013 Chromogenic print, 42 x 69 in. Courtesy of the Artist
© Lori Nix 

Describing herself as a “non-traditional photographer,” Lori Nix constructs her sets and then photographs them. After photographing the “scene” she has laboriously constructed, Nix dismantles the diorama, leaving the photograph as the ultimate creative object. Her latest project is a self-reflective examination of her own crowded living/work space.

ack the Dripper
Joe Fig (American, b. 1968)
Jack the Dripper, 2006
Cibachrome print, Ed. of 10, 16 x 20 in.
Courtesy of the Artist and the Tierney Gardarin Gallery, New York 

Examinations of artists’ working lives also inform the pieces created by Joe Fig. Like Haas, 

Fig moved to the representation of contemporary artists’ spaces, interviewing artists before recreating their studios in miniature. Fig’s intimate views clearly appeal to the viewer’s desire to sneak a peek into the artistic process of artists such as Chuck Close, Ross Bleckner, Eric Fischl, April Gornik, Bill Jensen, Ryan McGinness, Philip Pearlstein, James Siena and Joan Snyder.

he Art of Painting
Richard Haas (American, b. 1936)
The Art of Painting a.k.a.The Allegory of Painting, 1968-69 Wood, cardboard, cloth, paper, acrylic, pencil, masonite, lights, 221/2 x221/2x221/2in.
Courtesy of the Artist
Art © Richard Haas/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY 

Richard Haas began exploring the artist’s studio environment in the 1960s. He started with iconic masters, then moved into creating dioramic boxes of his contemporaries’ studios – including Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline – as well as views from his own 12-foot studio windows in New York’s then-gritty and industrial SoHo.

About the Bruce Museum: Explore Art and Science at the Bruce Museum, located at One Museum Drive in Greenwich, Connecticut. The Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm and Sunday from 1 pm to 5 pm; closed Mondays and major holidays. Admission is $7 for adults, $6 for students up to 22 years, $6 for seniors and free for members and children under 5 years. Individual admission is free on Tuesday. Free on-site parking is available and the Museum is accessible to individuals with disabilities.  For additional information, call the Bruce Museum at (203) 869-0376 or visit the website at www.brucemuseum.org.

For area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com