Wallace Nutting and the Invention of "Old America"

The Museum of Old Newbury preserves and interprets the history of “Old Newbury” including Newbury, Newburyport, and West Newbury from pre-settlement to the present. Founded in 1877, the Museum carries out its mission through the preservation and administration of the Cushing House, the Perkins Engraving Plant, and other historic structures on its High Street campus and furthers its purpose through lectures, exhibitions, educational programs, publications, and research.

Museum of Old Newbury

Wallace Nutting: Embodiment of the Colonial Revival. Shelburne Museum's Tom Denenberg digs deep into Nutting's shaping of "Old America."

<h3>Wallace Nutting (1861-1941) might be described as a Renaissance man, although first and foremost, he was an antiquarian. Educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard, his career path took him from minister, photographer, artist, lecturer, antiques collector, and furniture manufacturer to a New England entrepreneur who made a success from marketing what has been called &quot;Old America.&quot;</h3><h3>Tom Denenberg is the director of Shelburne Museum. Prior to moving to Vermont in 2011, he served as the chief curator and deputy director of the Portland Museum of Art (Portland, ME), curator of American art at Reynolda House (Winston-Salem, NC), and curator of American Decorative Arts at the Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford, CT). </h3><h3>Tom received a B.A. in history from Bates College and earned his Ph.D. in American Studies from Boston University.  He has held fellowships at the Smithsonian and Winterthur and taught at Boston University, Harvard, and Wake Forest.  </h3><h3>A student of the retrospective culture of New England, he is the author of <em>Wallace Nutting and the Invention of Old America</em> (2003) and <em>Winslow Homer and the Poetics of Place </em>(2010).  In addition, Tom has contributed essays to and/or edited <em>Picturing Old New England: Image and Memory </em>(1999), <em>Backstage Pass: Rock and Roll Photography</em> (2008), <em>Call of the Coast: Art Colonies of New England</em> (2009), <em>Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine</em> (2012), <em>Wyeth Vertigo</em> (2013), <em>Grandma Moses: American Modern</em> (2016) and <em>Painting a Nation: American Art at Shelburne Museum</em> (2017).</h3>

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Wallace Nutting and the Invention of "Old America"

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