Art Market Updates

The entrance to the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum.

Henry Morrison Flagler Museum awarded accreditation by AAM
After undergoing a rigorous process of self-assessment and peer reviews, the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Florida, was awarded Accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums at the most recent meeting of AAM’s Accreditation Commission. Of the nation’s estimated 33,000 museums, 1,087 are currently accredited.

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Tompkins Harrison Matteson (1813-1884), Trial of George Jacobs, Sr. for Witchcraft, 1855. Oil on canvas. Gift of R. W. Ropes, 1859. 1246. Peabody Essex Museum. Photo by Mark Sexton and Jeffrey R. Dykes.Salem witch trials
Running through April 4, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, presents an exhibition that looks at the extraordinary hysteria of the Salem witch trials, which involved more than 400 people and led to the deaths of 25 innocent people between June 1692 and March 1693. The Salem Witch Trials 1692 takes visitors through rarely exhibited original witch trial documents from PEM’s Phillips Library collection, along with works by artists like Tompkins Harrison Matteson, John Smibert, James Symonds and more.

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John Waters at his major retrospective, John Waters: Indecent Exposure, which opened at the BMA in fall 2018.

John Waters gifts nearly 375 works to BMA
The Baltimore Museum of Art recently announced a gift of nearly 375 works from celebrated, outlandish filmmaker John Waters’ fine art collection. The bequest includes photographs and works on paper with important examples by 125 artists, including Diane Arbus, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and others. The collection also includes around 90 prints, sculptures, mixed-media and video pieces by Waters himself, making the BMA the greatest repository of the Baltimore-based artist’s work. The gift follows Waters’ collaboration with the museum on its major retrospective, John Waters: Indecent Exposure, which opened in fall 2018. In recognition of Waters’ gift, the museum will name the restrooms in the East Lobby “The John Waters Restrooms”—per his request—as well as “The John Waters Rotunda” in the European art galleries.

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Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965), Road and River, 1926. Gift of Ruth Woods Dayton. Huntington Museum of Art. Photo by John Spurlock.

American Impressionist treasures
American Impressionism: Treasures from the Daywood Collection at the Huntington Museum of Art in West Virginia features 41 elegant American paintings from the Daywood Collection. Among the most treasured collections at the Huntington, the Daywood Collection is assembled by Ruth Woods Dayton and her husband, Arthur Spencer Dayton, revealing the their deep connections to art. Artists in the exhibition, which runs January 23 to July 11, include Edward Willis Redfield, Emil Carlsen and many others. —