OLD LYME — The Florence Griswold Museum and Café Flo have reopened to the public. Admission to the Museum is limited and by 24-hour advance online ticketing only. Check the Museum website for admission requirements and details of how to purchase tickets. Café Flo is open by reservation only.
Visitors to the Museum will be greeted with a new exhibition, Fresh Fields, which is a celebration of the Museum’s most beloved landscape paintings created by Impressionist artists who visited Old Lyme. The exhibition opens July 7 and runs through Nov. 1.
The selection highlights major recent acquisitions, such as Childe Hassam’s Apple Trees in Bloom, Old Lyme (1904), and emphasizes ongoing research about the local landscape that informed development of the Artists’ Trail.
Paintings, drawings, archival materials, and photographs will shed light on the history and ecology of Old Lyme, which caused it to become a gathering place for artists.
The exhibition also calls upon the knowledge and viewpoints of outside experts to build an interdisciplinary understanding. In addition to the Museum’s own curators and art history scholars, contributors will include an ecologist, members of the local Native American community, and experts on women’s history and African-American history.
Fresh Fields relies on those with expertise in these areas to help create a more complete understanding of the human history, culture, and values that shaped these Impressionist landscapes.
Editor’s Note: Remember that the Museum grounds are open and in bloom now — no need to wait for the reopening of the Museum to enjoy them!