MAACM’s second-floor Collector’s Gallery features works that have been hand-selected by MAACM’s Founder, Rudy Ciccarello. At the time of MAACM’s opening in 2021, this gallery included exemplars in fine arts, pottery, metalwork, and lighting from the Two Red Roses Foundation collection. Over the last year, Mr. Ciccarello has expanded the holdings of TRRF’s fine arts collection to include impressive works from the Boston School. These newly acquired works will soon be on display in the new re-configured Collector’s Gallery.
Sometimes classified more generally as American Impressionists, the Boston School took a traditional approach to representing the figure and modeled conservative traditions of western art history. Like the artisans of the American Arts and Crafts movement, a concurrent decorative arts movement, this fine arts movement was inspired by simple and harmonious compositions and Japanese principles of proportion and design. Emulating the loose painting styles of French Impressionists, the Boston School artists were also influenced by the interiors of Dutch painters like Vermeer and landscapes by John Singer Sargent.
The Boston School rejected new modern art ideals becoming fashionable at the time and held tight to traditionalism. Criticized for only depicting idealized life for the high-minded elite, the Boston School remained very popular in Boston and beyond through the 1930’s-1940’s.
MAACM’s Collector’s Gallery, is both an homage to the importance of collecting from the heart and represents the passion for the art of collecting and the vision of MAACM’s founder, Rudy Ciccarello. This gallery showcases not only extraordinary examples of the decorative arts collection but also highlights the fine arts collection mounted in beautiful Arts and Crafts era frames. The new installation will feature popular Boston School artists such as Marguerite Stuber Pearson, William M Paxton, Frederick Bosley, Alice Ruggles Sohier, Gertrude Fiske, Charles Sydney Hopkinson and Aldro T Hibbard in addition to American masters like William Merrit Chase, Childe Hassam, Maurice Prendergast, Edward Potthast, and E. Irving Couse.
