Issues. People. Events.

George Earle’s Bridgeport Parking Lot, Courtesy of Southbury Training School

The Mattatuck Museum has been awarded Historic New England's 2012 Community Preservation Grant of $1,000. Awarded annually, the grant is given to only one institution in each of the six states that constitute Historic New England. The Mattatuck Museum is delighted to work with Historical New England in furthering their goal of building a strong network of regional partners committed to the cause of heritage preservation.

Grant funds will be used for the cleaning and conservation of four paintings created for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression. They include George Earle's Bridgeport Parking Lot, Webster Kullberg's The Concert, Vincent Popolizio's Along the Dock and Henry Tomlinson's Winter Night. The paintings will be included in the Museum's fall exhibition, Art for Everyone: The Federal Art Project in Connecticut, which opens on Thursday, September 13, 2012. Many WPA works were lost when President Roosevelt's New Deal programs ended abruptly at the onset of World War II. As part of the museum's work for the exhibition, it has identified and recovered nearly 100 works. This set of four have been stored at Southbury Training School where they were allocated by the regional director of the Federal Art Project around 1939. The staff has diligently kept them safe for 75 years.

The Historic New England Preservation Grant will keep these visual records of an important era in our state's history alive. Other support for Art for Everyone is provided by the Connecticut Humanities Council and the Connecticut Community Foundation.

Visit the museum website at www.MattatuckMuseum.org or call us at (203) 753-0381 for more information on all of the museum’s programs, events, and exhibits including the Blue Star Museum Program which offers free admission for active duty personnel and their families through Labor Day.

The Mattatuck Museum is operated with support from the Department of Economic and Community Development/Connecticut Office of the Arts, and is a member of the Connecticut Art Trail, sixteen world-class museums and historic sites (www.arttrail.org). Located at 144 West Main Street, Waterbury, the museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Convenient, free parking is located behind the museum on Park Place.