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ART! Lippitt House Museum Exhibit for the Semiquincentennial – On Being American
Lippitt House Museum Exhibition Celebrates the Semiquincentennial
On Being American | Contemporary Artworks, Echoes of the past celebrates the Semiquincentennial at the Lippitt House Museum as they present an exhibition that reimagines the historic house through the work of five contemporary artists.
On view for a limited six-week run, this immersive installation invites visitors to experience the Museum’s richly preserved Victorian interiors in unexpected and thought-provoking ways, prompting a deeper understanding of the house as a living site shaped by craftsmanship, industry, and human experience across generations.
The exhibition features site-responsive works by curator and mixed media artist Susan Hardy. Exhibitors include:
Glass Artist Steven Easton
Textile Artist Amalia Galdona Broche
Installation Artist Lynne Harlow
Photographer McDonald Wright
Together, their works foreground often-overlooked narratives embedded within sites of historic wealth and refinement.
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- Susan Hardy, Curios
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- Steven Easton, Green Men
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- Lynne Harlow, Toil
Hardy’s Curios – is a series of small-scale sculptural works installed on individual white pedestals in the Lippitt House Drawing Room draw on the Victorian tradition of curiosity collecting—an upper-class practice of display that signaled taste, status, and refinement—Hardy revisits the impulse to gather and arrange objects as a form of meaning-making. Hardy’s curios are whimsical forms that resist clear utility or categorization, both echoing and questioning the historical desire to accumulate and display objects.
Textile Artist Amalia Galdona Broche‘s On Whose Labor this House Stands: is a series of three tapestries in Mary Ann Lippitt’s Reception Room, each addressing interconnected spheres of labor: domestic work, textile production, and the construction of the house itself. These works reframe the space as one shaped not only by the design and taste, but by the labor of servants, mill workers, and artisans. In doing so, the tapestries illuminate the social and economic foundations underlying the Lippitt family’s legacy.
Installation Artist Lynne Harlow’s Toil: is a site-specific installation composed of cotton bolls arranged in a stark geometric formation across the floor, echoing the intricate, hand-painted ceiling of Henry Lippitt’s Library. Engaging both the Moorish-inspired interior and the broader history of American industry, the debut work reflects on cotton’s central role in the production of wealth through systems of exploited labor. Its restrained visual language stands in contrast to the house’s decorative richness, evoking slavery, agriculture, and industrialization.
Glass Artist Steven Easton‘s Green Men: are works created through lost-wax casting, an ancient technique capable of preserving intricate detail. Inspired by the house’s Victorian architecture and interiors, these forms echo the period’s love of ornamentation, translating decorative motifs into tactile objects. Grounded in art historical research, the work examines material as a carrier of cultural values, linking craftsmanship, aesthetics, and the ideologies they express.
Photographer McDonald Wright, photographs: are a series of large-scale photographic studies installed in the Lippitt family’s Music Room, a central gathering space in wealthy Victorian homes. The works transform the space through immersive images of regional waterways. Referencing the Blackstone River, which powered the mills central to the Lippitt family’s wealth, the photographs also explore rhythm, light, and movement as visual analogs to musical composition. Ripples in the water become both a literal and metaphorical device, evoking the far-reaching effects of waterways, industrialization, and the accumulation of family wealth. Together, the works invite viewers to consider the unseen systems and histories flowing beyond the frame.
Under the leadership of Museum Director Cathy Saunders, On Being American reflects Lippitt House Museum’s ongoing commitment to expanding the site’s narrative beyond its 19th-century origins. “We wanted to move beyond traditional historic interpretation,” says exhibition curator and artist Susan Hardy. “Whose America is being remembered in a historic house like this? Whose stories? The artists do a fantastic job of bringing these layered histories of labor, identity, and belonging into the present.”
The exhibition serves as the centerpiece of the Museum’s participation in Handwork 2026, a national Semiquincentennial initiative celebrating the enduring importance of handmade traditions in American life. Through this project, Lippitt House Museum contributes to RI250, recognizing the individuals and practices that continue to define the state’s cultural identity.
This exhibition is supported by the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, Compass, Coastline Trust Company, and generous individual donors.
Exhibition Details
On Being American | Contemporary Artworks, Echoes of the Past will be open to the public three days a week between May 13 and June 20, 2026 at Lippitt House Museum, 199 Hope Street, Providence, RI.
Hours:
Wednesdays, 5:00 – 7:00 PM (exhibit closed on Wednesday, June 10)
Fridays, 1:00 – 5:00 PM
Saturdays, May 16 & 30, June 6 & 20, 1:00 – 4:00 PM
Additional visits are available by private appointment.For more information or to reserve ticket, please visit: https://www.preserveri.org/art-exhibition.
Special events:
Opening Reception: Wednesday, May 13, 5:00 – 8:00 PM
Providence Gallery Night: Thursday, May 21, 5:00 – 8:00 PM
ASL/Deaf Friendly Evening: Tuesday, June 2, 5:00 – 7:00 PM
About Lippitt House Museum
Lippitt House Museum, a property of Preserve RI, is a National Historic Landmark and one of the best-preserved Victorian homes in America. Through guided tours and year-round programming, the Museum invites visitors to engage with history, art, and community inspired by the Lippitt family’s legacy of public service. www.LippittHouse.org