A Stitch in Time: Quilts from the Collection

March 3 to June 13, 2010 

Curators: Kathleen Motes Bennewitz with Karen Frederick and Sue Reich  

 A Stitch in Time: Quilts from Collection of The Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich The exhibition is curated by Historical Society Director of Exhibitions and Programs Kathleen Motes Bennewitz, Curator of Museum Collections Karen Frederick and quilt historian, author and lecturer Sue Reich. This exhibition is generously funded by a grant from The Coby Foundation.

The exhibition, which will be shown in both the museum gallery and Bush-Holley House, offers a rare look at over twenty-five distinctive and colorful quilts made between the early and late 1800s.  The selection of rarely exhibited quilts is rich in the history of the people and the town of Greenwich and illustrates the historical and technical aspects of traditional patterns and quilting, ranging in style from traditional, whole-cloth and white-work quilts to appliquéd and signature quilts. Greenwich women, several of whom were descendants of the town’s founding families, made ten of the quilts on display. Of these quilts, some were made and given for special occasions that link families together—births, weddings and deaths—and others for charitable causes or moves to western territories where quilts brought a sense of history to a new location and made the new dwelling home. This exhibition is generously funded by a grant from The Coby Foundation.

Click here for more information

From This Day Forward: Looking Back at Greenwich Weddings

Spring 2011

Guest Curator: Kathleen Craughwell Varda
Coordinator: Kathleen Motes Bennewitz

American weddings and wedding traditions from the time of the American Revolution to the present day will be examined in this unique exhibition of artifacts, textiles and art related to weddings. The show will focus on the wedding day and how the ceremony has changed, how society’s perception of weddings has evolved, how men and women perceived this event, what outside forces influenced the manner in which weddings were celebrated and how wedding traditions emerged and evolved. Supported by a grant from the New Alliance Foundation. 

Growing Up Among Artists in “The Old House": Clarissa and Constant MacRae

To be Announced

Curator/Coordinator: Kathleen Motes Bennewitz with Anne H. Young and Karen Frederick

Family life at the Holley boarding house during the late art colony years beginning in 1904, is the focus of this special exhibition. Letters, postcards, photographs, and other manuscripts along with paintings and drawings reveal life at the house from the birth of Constant and Elmer MacRae’s twin daughters through the years surrounding World War I. Clarissa and Constant MacRae grew up in a world of artists, writers, and intellectuals. The show will explore child life in the early 20th and how Elmer MacRae captured fleeting childhood moments using drawing and painting as well as “snapshot” photography.