With its proximity to the cultural hub of New York City and its quieter suburban and rural landscapes, Connecticut was fertile ground for artists and writers in the period of Modernist movements between 1913 and 1979. Many of these cultural figures are well known through biographical and critical studies. Creative Places seeks to show how place played a significant role in creative work, and how in turn the artists and writers influenced communities in Connecticut.
Winslow Ames
Education/Curation
1907 – 1990
Founding director of the Lyman Allyn Museum which functioned as a community resource with art classes during the Depression and exhibitions which made art available to the people of New London, he introduced modernist prefabricated houses to New London.
- Biography/Description of Work
Winslow Ames was an American art historian and founding director of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum from 1932 until 1949. He studied at Harvard University with Edward W. Forbes and Paul J. Sachs, later art museum directors, Edward Warburg, art patron, and Lincoln Kirstein, cultural figure. Although his academic interests centered around Victorian art, Ames also had a deep interest in the art of his own period. After seeing examples of prefabricated houses at the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago, he had two such houses erected on museum-owned property adjacent to Connecticut College. He appreciated their stark International-style appearance, and was convinced that such houses were the wave of the future.
- Sources view
- Ames, Winslow, Obituary, New York Times, 10/08/1990.
Clouette, Bruce. Winslow Ames House National Register Nomination No. 95000283. National Park Service, 1995. - Associated Resource(s)