From A Place for Artists: Blaire Fensterstock, Dog Washington; Susan Clinard, Missing the Mark; Alicia Gonzalez, Interspecies Communication
NEW CANAAN, CT, July 9, 2025—As the United States commemorates its 250th anniversary year, a new exhibition, A Place for Artists, considers how communities like Silvermine have helped shape the cultural identity of Connecticut and the nation. With archival photographs, work that spans generations of Silvermine artists, and a glimpse of Silvermine’s current outreach and education programs, A Place for Artists presents a multi-faceted portrait of Silvermine as an inclusive, innovative, and vibrant force in the community. The exhibition opens on Sat., July 11, and runs through Aug. 20. The public is invited to the opening reception on July 11 from 2 to 4 p.m.
Begun in 1908 and formally organized in 1922, Silvermine’s Guild of Artists, its School of Art, its Galleries, and its community outreach programs have created an enduring model. Silvermine is a place where artists have found mentors, exhibited their work, taught, and discovered a creative home. The Guild includes two and three generations of members, a few of whom have work on display in the new exhibition. The complex, layered, and radial painting of Alicia Gonzalez is showcased alongside the groundbreaking work of her parents, Sergio Gonzalez-Tornero and Adrienne Cullom, both Silvermine lions.
Historically and in the contemporary art world, Silvermine has never been defined by a single style or movement. A wide range of artistic styles and disciplines is on view in A Place for Artists. Realists, abstractionists, sculptors, printmakers, ceramic artists, photographers, and multimedia artists can all be found here. Highlights from the exhibit include George W. Picknell’s historic landscape painting, A Bend in the Silvermine, and work by new and established Guild artists, including Susan Clinard whose stunning sculptures of human forms have earned an international audience.
The exhibition offers new and exciting work along with highlights from Silvermine’s history—including archival photographs of the campus and the founders whose philosophies helped Silvermine spring into being more than 100 years ago.
Every work of art at Silvermine reflects relationships—between artists and teachers, mentors and students, colleagues and neighbors, past and present. A Place for Artists invites visitors to explore the deep well of creativity at Silvermine—and to discover how the arts center has become a living institution whose greatest work has been the community it continues to create.
