The Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement (St. Petersburg, FL), announces the reopening of its Collector’s Gallery and opening reception on Thursday, December 5 from 5:30-7:30pm.

Re-opening of MAACM’s Collector’s Gallery

This special display presents outstanding works of art collected by the Museum’s founder and president, Rudy Ciccarello for his Two Red Roses Foundation, founded in 2004. Fascinated with the simple, honest designs of handcrafted pieces from the American Arts and Crafts movement, Rudy’s passion led him to build a collection of exceptional examples that embody the movement’s ideals, which now are on view throughout MAACM.

In the Collector’s Gallery, MAACM’s founder personally chose his favorite works, created by followers of the Arts and Crafts movement and those who shared affinities with it. A selection of oil paintings, in beautiful handcrafted frames, by prominent American Masters including Elizabeth Fisk, Frank Duveneck, Childe Hassam, Maurice Prendergast, E. Irving Couse, William Merrit Chase, Emile Gruppe, and Edward Potthast represent the new American Impressionism made fashionable at the turn of the twentieth century. Added to these are Marguerite Stuber Pearson, William M Paxton, Frederick Bosley, and Aldro T Hibbard of the more traditional Boston School, who were influenced by the interiors of Dutch painters like Vermeer and landscapes by John Singer Sargent. Of special interest in this gallery is a selection of decorative art created by Sarah Agnes Estelle Irvine, an eclectic and prolific artist who worked and taught at Newcomb College in New Orleans for nearly forty years.

MAACM’s Collector’s Gallery, is 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.

Photos Credit: Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement

Date Posted: November 20, 2024