Our Mission:
The New Bedford Art Museum engages the public in experiencing, understanding and appreciating art.
The South Coast is rich in culture, history and diversity. And rich in art!
Since 1996, the New Bedford Art Museum has been a fixture in downtown New Bedford, offering engaging exhibitions of artwork from around the corner and across the ocean.
Linger, learn and appreciate art and artistic expression as you stroll through the Museum's main Skylight Gallery. Discover new delights as you explore the Museum's home, a former bank that includes two vintage vaults, one with a distinctive circular safe door.
The Museum strives to offer dynamic and interactive educational opportunities. Museum education programs reach out to the community through its distinctive ArtMobile summer program as well as creative arts education and lectures for adults and children.
Museum exhibits change three times each year and vary in subject matter and artistic medium. Contemporary and historic art, as well as local, national and international artists, have been displayed.
Come get a taste of New Bedford's artistic culture.
About NBAM
NBAM was formed in 1994 and incorporated in 1996. Located in the historic downtown district of the City of New Bedford, the Museum is housed in the renovated Anthony J. Catojo, Jr. Building, formerly a bank.
NBAM is an educational private non-profit (501 (c) 3) organization, which carries out its mission through two major areas of activity: mounting exhibits and conducting education programs.
Exhibits:
NBAM is a non-collections-holding institution. Exhibited art and objects are culled from a variety of sources, including artist’s collections, private collectors and cultural institutions. This strengthens NBAM’s ongoing collaborative relationships, and often serves to bring art and objects into view that may not otherwise be available to our public.
NBAM is comprised of five galleries; the first level includes the Skylight Gallery, Heritage Gallery and the Upper Vault. On the lower level are the Community Gallery, and the Lower Vault with its distinctive circular safe door. We have three exhibition periods per year and can display from one to five exhibits per period.
NBAM is dedicated to presenting a wide array of art and objects, supported by an equally broad array of programming to appeal to the largest possible audience. Contemporary art, cultural art objects, and historic art are exhibited and include the art of local, national and international artists. Providing a balance of these exhibition categories accomplishes three goals:
- Reflect the plurality of interests in the SouthCoast region.
- Appeal to a wide potential audience.
- Challenge, expand, and educate viewers’ perceptual scope.
Educational Programs:
The Museum offers dynamic and interactive educational opportunities to a wide variety of patrons. Education programs include:
- artMOBILE. Considered a cornerstone of NBAM’s program and mission, this unique youth program offers free arts programming to youth in their neighborhoods. The distinctive “Purple Bus” and “Purple Mini-Van” bring art supplies and museum educators to twenty community sites a week during each summer.
- “Invest In Kids.” After-School Program. Conducted at the Museum, the after-school program is part of the City of New Bedford’s grant series, and offers regular activities to a youth population, filling a critical need during a high crime time (3-5pm). Current exhibits at NBAM provide the theme for the after-school art activities. Youth participating have come to refer the program as “Art Club.”
- SuMerART. offers an in-museum summer art program on weekday mornings and is an extension of the City “Invest In Kids” grant series.
- Drawing & Painting the SouthCoast. This adult art education program takes place at various outdoor sites on the scenic SouthCoast of Massachusetts, as well as in the museum galleries.
- Lectures. “Artist’s Talks” and “Curator’s Talks” are usual compliments to NBAM exhibitions. They are designed to provide enhanced experiences by encouraging in depth explorations of the themes of artwork, as well as the mediums and techniques used to create the art.
About New Bedford
New Bedford's working waterfront.
Image from National Park Service
The New Bedford Art Museum resides near many points of historical interest relating to the time of Melville when the city was the whaling capital of the world. Please visit the web sites listed below to help plan a complete visit to our home.
Please send suggestions for new links to the NBAM Webmaster.
AHA! Night
ArtsNewBedford.org
Artworks
Bristol County Convention & Visitors Bureau
Buttonwood Park Zoo
Cherry & Webb Gallery, Fall River
City of New Bedford (city government)
City of New Bedford (Tourism page)
Downtown New Bedford Inc.
Gallery X
Lee's Market, Westport
John Magnan Studios
Lloyd Center for the Environment
New Bedford 360
New Bedford Area Chamber of Commerce
New Bedford Free Public Library
New Bedford information
New Bedford Visitor's Guide
New Bedford Whaling Museum
New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park
Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum
Schooner Ernestina
South Coast Learning Network
The Standard-Times newspaper
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
University Art Gallery
Waterfront Historic Area LeaguE (WHALE)
The New Bedford Art Museum is governed by a Board of Trustees, managed by an Executive Director and operated by part-time staff and volunteers.
Staff
Karie C. Vincent
Executive Director
Karie C. Vincent has been working as a museum professional since 1989 with her experience including administration, planning and education. She has knowledge of current museum and non-profit practices and standards.
Vincent also has held a seat on the AHA! Steering Committee for more than five years and currently serve as the Co-Chair.
Prior to joining the Museum in 2000, Vincent was Executive Director of The Children's Museum in Dartmouth, Mass. She also was Curator of Education at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum & North Shore Scenic Railroad in Duluth, Minn.; the Program Assistant, Volunteer Coordinator at the Duluth Children's Museum; and Museum Educator at The South Street Seaport Museum in New York City.
Vincent has also been a Field Reviewer for the Institute of Museum and Library Services in Washington, D.C., and served as an Advisory Board Member for the "Incredible Exchange" Youth Volunteer/Mentorship Program for the University of Minnesota Extension Service.
She is a member of the New England Museum Association and the American Association of Museums. She graduated from the State University of New York, College at New Paltz.
David B. Boyce
Curatorial Consultant
David B. Boyce is a freelance arts writer and independent curator based in New Bedford, Mass., with a Master of Arts degree in Creative Writing and Gay Studies from Goddard College in Plainfield, Vt.
From 1969 to 1982, Boyce worked in New York City for the Pace Gallery, the Holly Solomon Gallery, for which he served as Assistant Director, and for the Sidney Janis Gallery, for which he was a Curatorial Assistant. Boyce assisted on projects for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Queens Museum, and with numerous artists, including Joseph Cornell, Jasper Johns, Tom Wesselmann, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Ellsworth Kelly, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Claes Oldenburg, George Segal, Marisol, Andy Warhol, Bridget Riley, Lucas Samaras, Louise Nevelson, Robert Irwin, Craig Kaufman, Gordon Matta-Clark, Laurie Anderson, Mary Heilmann, Terry Winters, Joan Thorne, Thornton Willis, Michael David, Joseph Marioni, Robert Kushner, Kim MacConnell, Richard Nonas, Gene Highstein, and Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, and photographers Duane Michals, Robert Mapplethorpe, David Douglas Duncan, Gisèle Freund, and Helen Levitt.
Boyce is Senior Arts Correspondent for The Standard-Times in New Bedford, contributing two regular columns entitled ARTicles: Notes on the Arts and OutPosts, as well as feature pieces and reviews on art, theater and cultural issues. His writing on art for national periodicals has appeared in Arts Magazine, Art New England, ArtsMedia, American Art Review, The Gay & Lesbian Review/Worldwide, and The Harvard Review.
While in New York, Boyce curated his first museum show in 1980, In Photography: Color as Subject, for the Visual Arts Museum of the School of Visual Arts. This exhibit included the first American showing of a work in color by Mapplethorpe. In addition, Boyce curated exhibits at Nobé Gallery, 55 Mercer Street Gallery, the Holly Solomon Gallery, and the Sidney Janis Gallery.
Here in New Bedford in 2002, for UMass Dartmouth’s University Art Gallery at the Star Store, Boyce curated Duane Michals Unlimited – 1958-2002. In 2007, at the same location, he curated Joseph Marioni: Five Paintings. For Gallery X in 2007, he was the sole juror for Q@X, an exhibit of artworks focusing on subjects and issues of particular relevance to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered communities.
Since 2001, Boyce has been Curatorial Consultant to NBAM, advising on, assisting with, and overseeing numerous exhibits, including Cecil Clark Davis: A Woman Ahead of Her Time, MÁSCARAS: Masks of Mexico from the Tryworks Collection, John Thornton Paintings: A Retrospective, Inviting Response: Celebrating Our First Decade, Masters of Watercolor, Recent Work by Members of the New England Watercolor Society, Mike Mazer Paints New Bedford & Other Scenes of the SouthCoast, New Work by Stephen Whittlesey: Tables & Shelves, and Skude 360°- An Exhibition of Paintings by Severin Haines. In the fall of 2008, Boyce will curate HOME GROWN: Six from the SouthCoast, and such future shows as retrospectives for painters Roger Kizik (fall 2009) and William Shattuck ((fall 2010), and textile artist, Elin Noble (fall 2013). In the spring of 2010, Boyce will curate A Particular Vision: The Photographs of Robert Giard.
Curators
Joan Backes
Curator, The Vault Series
Joan Backes is Curator of The Vault Series, which she originated for the Museum in 1997. She has served on the Museum's Education Committee and continues to serve on the Museum's Exhibitions Committee.
Backes received her MFA from Northwestern University. She has taught at The Kansas City Art Institute, Northwestern University, Brown University and The Maine College of Art Graduate Program among others. She has exhibited her own work as a painter and installation artist extensively internationally, and her work is included in museum, public and private collections nationally and internationally.
Backes has received numerous honors and awards including, in part, Senior Fulbright Scholar Award; National Endowment Awards; American-Scandinavian Fellowship, and Fulbright Hays Award. She was Chair of the Distinguished Teaching of Art Award Selections Committee for the College Art Association and also served on the CAA International Committee. She served on the Selections Committee for Senior Fulbright Scholars in Washington, D.C. She has been Visiting Artist and Critic at numerous art schools and universities internationally and has been juror of many exhibitions. Backes has organized exhibitions in Wisconsin and Illinois and has worked at Frumkin Struve Gallery in Chicago.
Backes' Vault Series Exhibitions have included the work of artists from New England to California as well as the work of international artists. Group shows have covered subjects such as "Water," "Black and White," "Unique Prints," etc. At times The Vault Series has focused on the work of a single artist, such as Ed Paschke. The Vault Series has received critical attention in The Boston Globe and Art New England, as well as The Standard-Times.
Committees
Exhibition Committee Chair: Tom Puryear, Dartmouth, Mass.
Festival of Trees Committee Chair: Mona Ketcham & Susan Gabert
Additional Contacts:
Executive Director: Karie C. Vincent
Curatorial Consultant: David B. Boyce
Newsletter Editor: Julie Bowman
Graphic Design: Hannah Haines
Webmaster: Jim Rattray
