3 NEW EXHIBITIONS!

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Modeling Women:
Female Artists and Models at Chesterwood

through October 31

Modeling Women is Chesterwood’s inaugural exhibition in the French Family Galleries on the second floor of the recently restored 1901 Residence. These galleries provide the opportunity to fulfill our mission to tell more expansive and inclusive stories about the lasting impact of Daniel Chester French as a working sculptor.  This exhibition brings to light the contributions of French’s female models, well known in their day as the muses to many of French’s contemporaries, such as the African American model Hettie Anderson and America’s “first super model”, Audrey Munson.  French also actively taught and championed female sculptors, two of which are highlighted in their own galleries: Evelyn Beatrice Longman and Margaret French Cresson.

Daniel Chester French depended on many colleagues to realize his artistic vision. An often-overlooked part of a sculptor’s process is the selection of a model to pose in the studio. As a realistic figurative sculptor, he relied heavily upon his models, and they played a critical role in his creative process. As a professional sculptor he was also a mentor to dozens of students both in his studio and as a teacher at the Art Students League in New York. His students often worked alongside him as assistants and collaborated with him on projects. Daniel Chester French would also recommend his mentees for sculptural commissions he was unable to take on himself, thus launching many successful careers.

Modeling Women: Female Models and Artists at Chesterwood brings together over 35 sculptures, paintings, and medals from Chesterwood’s permanent collection, some of which have never been exhibited in public before, to explore the themes of collaboration and mentorship.

Photos: Evelyn Beatrice Longman at work on the Horsford Doors for the Wellesley College Library. Collection of the Loomis Chaffee Archives, Loomis Chaffee School, Windsor, Connecticut; Margaret French Cresson in the Chesterwood Studio with her portrait of Daniel Chester French, 1934; Audrey Munson, 1915. Photograph by Arold Genthe. Genthe photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

The 47th Annual Contemporary Outdoor Sculpture Show

Global Warming/Global Warning!

through October 31

June 7 marks the opening of its 47th annual contemporary outdoor sculpture exhibition, which will run throughout the season, ending October 31. This season’s exhibition, entitled Global Warming/ Global Warning! addresses the issue of climate change and is curated by preservation engineer and restoration architect Michael F. Lynch, with works by sculptors Kathleen Jacobs, Ann Jon, Harold Grinspoon, Natalie Tyler, and DeWitt Godfrey.  

Global Warming/Global Warning! explores how the natural and designed landscapes at Chesterwood are being impacted by global warming, climate change, invasive species, pollution, and the aging out of a mature forest. Invited artists engage directly with the environment, using the native and invasive materials of the forest, responding to climate impacts, and introducing human-made objects juxtaposed with the natural environment to challenge the viewer and raise issues around what we are doing to our planet. 

Curator Michael Lynch writes, “In 2008, Chesterwood hosted an outdoor contemporary sculpture show that reflected artists’ concerns about the environment, but as the Albany Times Union reviewer wrote at the time, the catalog narrative was silent on the issue of climate change and environmental degradation. A lot has changed in the intervening decades. In 2016 during The Nature of Glass show featuring contemporary glass, I was struck by the fragility of the art being shown in the woods. In 2019-20 I was struck by the fragility of those very woods, as one of the tree sculptures in Rick and Laura Brown’s exhibit ‘One Impulse From Vernal Wood,’ collapsed.  

Those experiences led me to focus this year’s theme on how the natural and designed landscapes at Chesterwood are being impacted by global warming. Global Warming/ Global Warning! reflects the duality of the art being made in the aging forest that is suffering from climate change and the hope that we can find our way out of the climate situation we have created.” 

This year’s exhibition features artists Kathleen Jacobs, Ann Jon, DeWitt Godfrey, Harold Grinspoon, and glass artist Natalie Tyler, who is premiering a new work entitled “Tornado.”  A full survey of the artists’ statements about their work for Global Warming/Global Warning! can be found in Chesterwood’s press kit.  

Photos: Natalie Tyler, Tornado, 2025; DeWitt Godfrey, Audrey and Hettie, 2024; Harold Grinspoon, Serendipity, 2022; Kathleen Jacobs, Ode to Isle, 2024-26; Ann Jon, Last Aquifers; Harold Grinspoon, Olympus, 2021; DeWitt Godfrey, Fraxinus, 2025

Ann Jon: A Retrospective

through October 31, 2025

Artist’s Statement
AS A CHILD IN DENMARK, I was always reading about adventures and faraway places and thus developed a curiosity for different cultures and mythologies, and a longing to have my own adventures. So, at the age of 18 I left Denmark for America, and there in New York I had my first experience with clay and wood, transforming thoughts and ideas to three-dimensional forms.

Guided by Jose de Creeft, a Spanish artist teaching at The Art Students League, I learned direct stone carving which approaches the stone with no preconceived ideas or models. This technique freed me from the classic carving technic of reproducing clay or plaster models into marble sculptures. It allowed me to experiment and to explore new directions in my work.

Following the trail of marble, I came to Carrara, Italy, where Michelangelo had found the marble for his David sculpture, and where Henry Moore was now developing new sculptural forms. I was accepted to the Accademia di Belle Arte de Carrara, and studied classical sculpture techniques there, including participating in a medical dissection of a human body.

When the Academy repeatedly closed its doors because of student strikes, I rented a corner in an artisans workshop, where religious statuary was created, where every aspect of marble carving could be observed, and where you were expected to drink red wine on cold mornings. My sculptures went from there to an exhibition in Milan, Italy.

Back in America I became immersed in Greek mythology and developed my personal 3-D interpretations of the Cretan Labyrinth, Ariadne, Theseus and the Minotaur. This led me to the Greek island of Naxos, with its marble quarries and Cycladic sculpture. Here, Greek mythology came alive for me in the air, the ocean, the mountain villages, the Cycladic museum and the Kouros, large, figurative sculptures, left in the quarries by ancient artists. For two years I carved marble there, taught sculpture, and only left when a war between Cyprus and Greece threatened.

Proceeding from Greek to Sumerian mythology, I created masks and stage sets for a theatrical production of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and then carved and modeled sculptures inspired by that ancient culture. Later, backpacking in the canyons of the Southwest, the petroglyphs and dwellings left by Native Americans inspired me, and the rock forms of the canyons influenced me to develop architectural sculptures. As I researched many cultures and mythologies, I became aware of a subconscious thread that seemed to connect them all, and lead back to timeless cultures and ancestors.

After recently retiring from SculptureNow, which I founded and ran for 25 years, I am now exploring archaic architecture in its many manifestations around the world. Recently my work addresses the threats to our planet, and I have created sculptures referring to the genocide of the Rohingya people in Myanmar, fleeing in their fragile boats, the Tokelau islands disappearing under rising water, its inhabitants becoming climate refugees, and the growing scarcity of water for drinking and agriculture. Anthony Doerr’s book Cloud Cuckoo Land inspired me to create a sculptural interpretation of his description of an interstellar ark, wondering if that might be a way for humankind to survive.

Meanwhile art and life go on, and the physical labor of sculpture grounds me and imagination balances the realities of life. For nearly three decades much of my work has been large-scale, outdoor, public sculpture, based on some of the smaller pieces you can see here.

- Ann Jon, August 2025

Photo: Installation view of Ann Jon: A Retrospective at the Woodland Gallery, Chesterwood, August 2025