Abstract
It was more than fifty years after Whitney’s contributions to Newport’s art scene that another dynamic woman brought the daring New York artists of the day back to the Art Association of Newport. Judith Richardson Silvia (1940-2003) became the institution’s first director in 1975. One local newspaper heralded her arrival with the headline: “Old line city art museum gets high-powered head.” Another proclaimed, “Art Association pulls off coup for Newport.” In August of 1974, Art Association members had experienced a hint of what was to come when Silvia guest-curated Major Contemporary Artists as Printmakers, a selection of sixty prints by thirteen artists, lent by New York galleries. The main gallery in Richard Morris Hunt’s historic John N.A. Griswold House (acquired in1916 to house the Art Association) was filled with what today are icons of Pop Art: Andy Warhol’s screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and Chairman Mao; Roy Lichtenstein’s Mirror linocuts and lithographs; and James Rosenquist’s super-sized lithograph Spaghetti.
Recommended Citation
Whipple Grinnell, Nancy
(2007)
"Judith Richardson Silvia and Modernism in Newport, 1974-1977,"
Newport History: Journal of the Newport Historical Society: Vol. 76:
Iss.
256, Article 13.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.salve.edu/newporthistory/vol76/iss256/13