Around the MAG
looking back
MAGazine has gone digital! The Gallery's annual member magazine is now Around the MAG, with headlines and features that change each month. Don't look for us in your mailbox, but do visit this site often. (If you're a MAG member, you'll still receive ARTiculate, our bimonthly calendar, by US mail.)
In 1955, MAG director Gertrude Herdle Moore (second from right) took tea with Council members in the Fountain Court.
February 14, 1940. The Rochester newspapers were filled with the ominous events that would soon lead America into war. Closer to home, the winter’s worst snowstorm snarled traffic and closed schools. Yet for the Memorial Art Gallery, it was a very bright day indeed, as the Gallery’s Women’s Council held its first meeting.
Like so much at the Gallery, the Council’s beginnings were inextricably linked with the Herdle family…
William Ordway Partridge's iconic sculpture Memory (shown being moved on October 27) now greets visitors to the second floor, as she did in the early days of the Gallery. The 1913 work was commissioned by MAG founder Emily Sibley Watson as a memorial to her son, James G. Averell.
If you look very closely in the archive photo below left, you'll see a shadowy outline of Memory in almost the same position, just inside the original main entrance.
Today, Memory is looking better than ever, thanks in large part to cleaning and repairs made possible by long-time supporter Jim and Jacquie Adams.
What's in a name? In the early days, paintings really did hang on Clotheslines.
Not Your Mother's Clothesline
In 1957, 101 exhibitors and 2,000 bargain hunters braved the wind and rain of Hurricane Audrey at the Memorial Art Gallery’s first Clothesline Festival. From these inauspicious beginnings, Clothesline has grown into a major community happening.
Today, Rochester's largest and longest-running fine art and crafts festival is the place to experience all-day live entertainment from gospel to hula, sample food from some of Rochester’s favorite vendors, enjoy free family art activities, visit the museum, and of course, browse and buy original artwork by artists from across New York state.
