Like the vibrant works of art that adorn its walls, you’ll find the new Westerly Museum of American Impressionism down a winding road along the banks of the scenic Pawcatuck River. On a recent blustery day during peak foliage season, a steady stream of visitors filed into the museum, eager to be among the first to explore this new attraction.
The shiny new space opened in October in a building that once housed a rehabilitation center, with numerous connecting rooms refitted into 11 viewing galleries featuring over 150 works. Established by art collectors and longtime Westerly residents Cynthia and Thomas Sculco, the 20,000-square-foot attraction is dedicated to collecting, preserving, interpreting, and exhibiting works of American Impressionism from the 1880s to the 1920s. The works on display capture the light, color, and beauty of quintessential landscapes and everyday life, evoking the charm of New England and the East Coast.
Whether you’re a serious art-lover or casual museum-goer, these paintings invite you to slow down, as the characteristic brushstrokes of the Impressionist artists flow over you in waves. You simply can’t rush through these works from celebrated painters Childe Hassam, Lilla Cabot Perry, and John Singer Sargent, as well as lesser-known artists who merit greater recognition.
“It was a busy opening week,” says Museum Director Catherine Shotick, who began planning for the opening when she was hired in May 2023. “The museum was still very much under construction. This is my first
directorship and my first time experiencing a museum from the ground up. It’s been fun.” In addition to authoring summary descriptions posted in each gallery, Shotick managed the emerging museum through its pre-opening stages. “I picked the company that designed the collection storage and things like that, things I’ve never had the opportunity to do before, so it’s been incredible.”
Shotick expects events and education programming to begin soon. “There’s a lot on the agenda. Frankly, the biggest challenge is that we can’t do it all at once. I want to do events and programming, and I want to do an
internship program, and collaborate with different cultural institutions in the region.” She says that art education is a big part of the museum’s mission. “We are planning a lecture series at the museum every year where we invite art historians and curators to come to Westerly and talk about American Impressionism,” she says, along with sharing plans to start a formal internship program. “That was really key for me starting out in the museum world,” says Shotick. “It was an internship that got me interested in working at a museum, and now here I am. I definitely want to support college students in that regard.”
Shotick takes pride in the collection and expects the museum to maintain a dynamic environment, with galleries rotating displays periodically. “Our galleries will not stay static,” she says. “We plan on bringing in loans from either private collectors or other museums and switching out some of the galleries every year. There are 150 paintings on view, but the Sculcos have well over 300 paintings in their collection.”
The museum is a feather in the cap for the Westerly arts community, as Shotick notes. “We have great theater, great music, great restaurants, and this museum is the little missing piece that the town needs to make its cultural world even better. I feel like we’re kind of filling the void.” Learn more at WMAIRI.org
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