Exhibition 'Arkell’s Inspiration: Art for the People' in Arkell Museum and Canajoharie Library
This gallery features late 19th and early 20th-century American paintings purchased by Bartlett Arkell, our founder and first president of the Beech-Nut Packing Company, specifically to share with his community. Works on display include all seven of our oil paintings by Winslow Homer (reunited after independent loans to Germany, Maine, and Massachusetts), and significant paintings by many distinguished American artists including William M. Chase, Childe Hassam, George Inness, and Albert Bierstadt.
The inspiration of Bartlett Arkell, this original art gallery opened to the public in 1929, and was once accessed from the original stand-alone Library building through two doors. Today, these doors are windows providing Library patrons a glimpse into the gallery and Museum visitors a glimpse into the original Library (now our Reading Room).
Also not to be missed in this gallery is the full scale copy of The Night Watch by Rembrandt, commissioned by Arkell specifically for this space, and on display today.
Clifford W. Ashley (1881-1947)
U.S.S. Constitution, 1929
Oil on canvas
Gift of Bartlett Arkell, 1930
Made possible by the support of the New York State Council On the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
