New Book by Ann Y. Smith!
In Plain Sight: The Whittemore Collection and
the French Impressionists
Available now at the Mattatuck Museum!

The legendary Whittemore Collection of Impressionist paintings is the subject of a new book Hidden in Plain Sight: The Whittemore Collection and the French Impressionists. Author Ann Y. Smith presents a lavishly illustrated account of the family’s contributions to community-shaping parks and architecture in Connecticut, and their inspired collection of French Impressionism now in museums throughout the world.

John Howard Whittemore and his son Harris Whittemore, who made a fortune in iron manufacturing, transformed the towns of Naugatuck and Middlebury, Connecticut during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, bringing the best of contemporary art and architecture to their homes and their hometowns.

The Whittemores brought the nation’s leading architectural firm McKim, Mead & White to Naugatuck to create an idealized vision of a New England community. They were also among the first American collectors of French Impressionist paintings, acquiring more than 1,000 works of art by such French masters as Claude Monet and Edgar Degas, as well as American expatriates Mary Cassatt and James Whistler. The newly revealed story is based on the family’s rich archives documenting a story that was largely unknown to the public for more than a century.

The book is published in soft cover with 116 pages and 62 illustrations, many in full color.
To get your copy call the Mattatuck Museum Arts and History Center,
144 West Main Street, Waterbury CT 06702, at 203-753-0381 x 10.
$40 plus shipping and handling.

About the Author:

Ann Y. Smith is a museum consultant who lectures and writes about the cultural history of western New England. A long-time director and curator at the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, she led the museum’s move to its expanded facility on the city Green in 1986 and created its acclaimed exhibit Coming Home: Finding Community in a Changing World in 2008.

Her essays on 18th century furniture, architecture and social history and her articles on 19th century painting and the culture of Connecticut have appeared in publications including The Magazine Antiques, American Art Review, Fine Arts Connoisseur,and the journal Connecticut History.

She has served as adjunct faculty of art history and architectural history at the University of Connecticut, Waterbury; a board member at the Connecticut Humanities Council, the New England Foundation for the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts; and a grants reviewer at the National Endowment for the Humanities.