The Drawing on the work of local marine artists, including painters William Allen Wall (1801-1885), William Bradford (1823-1892), Charles Henry Gifford (1839-1904), Dwight Tryon (1849-1925), and Louis H. Richardson (1853-1923), and photographers William Finn (1929-1999) and Norman Fortier (active 1949-2003), the New Bedford Whaling Museum opened its most recent exhibition, Sea and Sky, to the public on July 18, 2008. The exhibition makes thematic connections between the fine arts and environmental sciences.

Each of the artists represented in the exhibition explored light and shadow, translucence and solidity, mass and movement, through the clouds they depicted, whether in drawings, paintings, or photographs. The clouds themselves reveal the many moods of the sea and sky, from sunny to thunderous, friendly to threatening. These atmospheric studies suggest to the viewer both the peacefulness and the restlessness of the natural world.

A photographic chart allows viewers to connect the scientific names of various cloud formations with the artistic representations, and encourages them to understand how the sea and sky interact to create these ever-shifting sculptures. A cloud-finder activity is available for families and children.

Educational programming focuses on the exploration of relationships among the arts and sciences, specifically painting, photography, meteorology, and oceanography. The connection of culture and climate encourages visitors to observe and share the synergy of art and the natural world. Through a related lecture series, it also provides a forum for discussion of the global impact of human-influenced climate change, particularly in at-risk coastal and insular communities.

The Museum would like to thank Glenn Field, Alan Dunham, and Robert Thompson of the National Weather Service in Taunton, Massachusetts, for their help in identifying the cloud formations in the works of art on display here.

For more information on clouds and a downloadable cloud chart, visit the following web sites:

www.weather.gov/os/brochures/cloudchart.pdf

www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream//synoptic/clouds.htm

www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/

This exhibition has been funded in part by ECHO (Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations), a program administered by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement.