Concord Collects exhibits twenty remarkable works of art from four Concord private collections

Concord Collects exhibits twenty remarkable works of art from four Concord private collections that will be displayed together for the first time when the Concord Museum in Massachusetts reopens its updated galleries on October 11, 2019.

David Wood, Curator, Concord Museum, explained, “Since these museum-quality paintings and sculptures are all privately owned, they are really being seen by the public for the first time.”
Concord Collects, which will be showcased in the Wallace Kane Gallery, provides viewers a unique opportunity to engage with these extraordinary pieces in composition with one another.

One collection features Tang and Song ceramics of extraordinary technical and artistic merit from the workshops of ancient China; another includes works by some of the most accomplished and influential 19th - century American painters;

 

a third concentrates on detailed painted views of Macao, Whampoa, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou that represent the factories of Canton through which China traded with the world in the 18th and 19th centuries; and the fourth includes significant early American portraits, one by renowned painter John Singleton Copley.

Copley's portrait depicts Lieutenant Joseph Loring who was in command of one of the four ships that attempted to bring tea into Boston in 1773. Three of them had their contents despoiled in the Boston Tea Party, but Loring’s command ran aground on Cape Cod; attempts to salvage the tea made that ship’s cargo another conflict point in the lead-up to the Revolution.

The collections have been formed thoughtfully over decades by an equally remarkable group of collectors whose broad-ranging interests come into sharp focus with each selection made. The collectors include: Tom and Bonnie Rosse, Ed Tiedemann, Chip and Margaret Ziering, and Neil and Anna Rasmussen. David Wood explained, “We are extremely grateful to these collectors who were generously willing to share their interest in these objects by loaning these incredible pieces of art. This exhibition, in a way, is as much about the art collectors as the collections.”