Numerous new works of art added to Cape Ann Museum collection as renovations near completion
Museum’s main campus expected to re-open in Spring 2026
Gift of Mary Craven, 2025 [2025.014.001].
As the Cape Ann Museum prepares to reinstall its newly renovated galleries in the coming months, it is pleased to announce a number of significant new acquisitions, including sculptures, paintings, drawings, decorative arts, and archival items. Many have been received as gifts, and others have been purchased by the Museum.
Building on the news two years ago of the transformative commitment by Janet and William Ellery “Wilber” James to gift 300 exemplary pieces of Cape Ann American art to the Cape Ann Museum, the institution has sought to expand its collections by working with other donors in recent years to reimagine the Downtown campus galleries as part of the ambitious CAM 150 campaign.
“These new acquisitions and donations are paramount to the Museum’s ability to further illuminate the stories of labor and ingenuity, but also of beauty and creativity that have always been intertwined here on Cape Ann,” said Oliver Barker, Museum Director. “From Indigenous artifacts to a rare work by Fitz Henry Lane and other significant additions to our 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century collections, each of these new works underscore the generosity of this community. Whether gifting objects or contributing funds to support the Museum’s acquisitions, this collective generosity is exciting and humbling.”
Among the notable additions are a collection of drawings, collages, and sculptures by Lawrence Fane (1933-2008); three watercolors by Winslow Homer (1836-1910); a circa 1916 self-portrait in oil by Theresa Bernstein (1890-2002); a plaster sculpture by Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington (1876-1973); three oil paintings by Charles Hopkinson (1869-1962); and an early view of Gloucester by Stuart Davis (1892-1964).
Also newly added to the collection is Gabrielle de Veaux Clements’s Motion at Folly Cove, currently on view in Hammers on Stone: The Granite Industry on Cape Ann. The work was gifted earlier this year by Sidney Tynan, age 104, who had previously bequeathed to the Museum a Walker Hancock sculpture of herself as a young girl. The piece—one of the few female portraits Hancock created—was also received by the Museum this year.
Gift of Sidney Tynan, 2005 [2005.004.001].
The Museum also recently acquired a rare oil painting by Fitz Henry Lane (1804–1865), Untitled (Floral Still Life), 1849, which will undergo conservation, along with its original frame, before going on public display next spring. This painting is early and unique to Lane’s oeuvre, and depicts an arrangement of flowers as gathered from a garden on Middle Street in Gloucester.
The James Collection, Gift of Janet & William Ellery James to the Cape Ann Museum, 2024 [2024.008.001].
Significant works by contemporary artists have also been added to the collection, including two portrait photographs by Matika Wilbur, a critically acclaimed social documentarian from the Swinomish and Tulalip peoples of coastal Washington, WA. Wilbur created both portraits during a week-long residency at the Cape Ann Museum Green in 2024. Other important and newly acquired pieces by contemporary artists are by Susan Erony, Jeff Weaver, Brad Story, Morgan Faulds Pike, and Jon Sarkin (1953-2024). The recent Sarkin acquisitions include his sketchbooks and a large-scale self-portrait identified as a key work in close collaboration with the artist’s estate.
The Museum’s archival holdings have likewise expanded, with the addition of early records of the Methodist Church in Gloucester; documentary materials related to the Folly Cove Designers; a collection of 68 early navigational books, including works by Nathaniel Bowditch and Edmund Blunt; and photographs and written materials related to the Babson-Alling House (c. 1740). Other newly acquired objects and records reflect the industries that have shaped Cape Ann over the decades, including a colonial 1776 map of Massachusetts Bay; two models of the Italian salt ships that once frequented Gloucester Harbor; examples of baggywrinkles made locally around 1883 and used on fishing schooners; and photographs by Mike Lafferty documenting the Cape Ann Tool Company during the 1990s.
Among the most recent additions is Morgan Faulds Pike’s plaster model of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Memorial. This important work will be featured in the Museum’s revitalized fisheries galleries and was purchased as part of a broad community wide Museum appeal conducted this summer. Also on view will be Leonard Craske’s (1877-1950) rendering of a fisherman’s wife and child, done around 1944 and never cast in bronze. Together, Pike and Craske’s works will highlight the often-overlooked contributions of women to Gloucester’s maritime history.
The Museum’s Downtown campus on Pleasant Street is currently closed for a comprehensive 14-month renovation and will reopen in spring 2026. During this time, CAM Green on Poplar Street has hosted a series of free public exhibitions.
Cape Ann Museum purchase, 2025 [2025.040.001].
The CAM 150 campaign successfully raised more than $23 million to fund the redesign and expansion of the Museum’s galleries—substantially enhancing the fisheries and archival collections—and to install upgraded climate control, lighting, and security systems. These improvements will ensure an exceptional visitor experience as the Museum enters its next chapter, coinciding with the celebration of its 150th anniversary and the opening of the landmark exhibition Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko: By the Sea on June 30, 2026.
Good Morning Gloucester 