From Special Collections: A Perpetual Invitation: Art in the Concord Free Public Library
From its founding in 1873, art has had a special place in the Concord Free Public Library. Today, it is home to the Library Corporation's unique Collection of over 200 art pieces emphasizing Concord's history, people, and culture, including sculptures, paintings, and lithographs, from various artists from Concord and beyond. The Collection's focus is works of art associated with the Town of Concord, whether via the subject, donor, or artist.
The Library began taking in art pieces upon opening its doors in 1873, including David Scott's Ralph Waldo Emerson, Daniel Chester French's bust of Simon Brown, and William James Stillman's The Philosophers' Camp in the Adirondacks. By 1875, Munroe contemplated the first expansion of the Library to host an art museum, to make sure that it had room for continuous growth in the book collection and the works of art. "A fine building, well adapted to the purpose, would be a perpetual invitation to possessors of Art treasures to consider the wisdom of bestowing them on the public," William Munroe wrote to the Concord Free Public Library Corporation. While his plans for a museum never achieved fruition, they sowed the seeds of an exceptional Collection that we all marvel at today.
Over the last two years, Special Collections has engaged in a major initiative to enhance the Library Corporation's art collection documentation and prepare to make images of the individual art pieces in the entire Collection available online. Starting in the late fall of 2020, following an extensive inventory and documentation project, Jim Coutré Photography photographed the Library Corporation's entire Collection on-site. We also contracted with Skylight Studios Inc., located in Woburn, to clean and restore over a dozen plaster busts and objects in the Library Corporation's Collection.
Today, we are excited to announce that you can view images of the entire Collection here.
Below Left to Right: Church at Annisquam, by Elizabeth Wentworth Roberts; Henry David Thoreau, by Louis Mayer; and Snow in Fairyland, by Charles Hovey Pepper. Art pieces courtesy of the Concord Free Public Library Corporation. Photographic images ©2020 James E. Coutré.
