About

A LONG TRADITION

The New Haven Paint & Clay Club, Connecticut’s oldest continuously active arts organization, holds a long history of promoting the visual arts throughout New Haven and beyond. Through its sustained support of the visual arts and artists for over a century, the NHP&CC has become a well-known and respected asset for the community as a whole.

The Club’s first exhibit included six sculptures and a variety of two-dimensional pieces. Today, the Club accepts entries of two-dimensional works in most media, and sculpture in most material (with a provided stand), but not crafts or giclee prints. Cash prizes were offered in the early exhibits and continue today. Over $4000 in prizes are awarded each spring at the Annual Juried Art Exhibition. Prizes are given at the fall Active Members Exhibition as well.

For over a decade in the 1900s, exhibits were held at the Yale School of the Fine Arts. Community support for the Club was strong, with over 3,000 people attending the 1915 exhibit. For the next thirty years, the shows were held in the New Haven Public Library. In 1961, the Club found a home for its exhibits at The John Slade Ely House (now the Ely Center of Contemporary Art), where the Club continues to hold some of its exhibitions.

In the early years, artist membership in the Club was by invitation. In 1970, the Club decided that Active Members must have been accepted in two of the spring juried exhibitions. These juried shows are limited to artists from New England and New York. Exhibition jurors are experienced artists or museum professionals with no direct connection to the Club. Jurors are nominated and selected by the Club’s Board of Directors.

The Club’s current Active Membership is approximately 200 artists, who are required to pay modest annual dues in order to keep their active status. From the beginning, the Club has also had an Associate Member category, open to anyone interested in the arts. Associate Members, pay reduced annual dues, allowing them to receive the Club’s mailings, and to be acknowledged in the catalog of the spring Annual Juried Art Exhibition.

Besides providing an opportunity for artists to exhibit, a major accomplishment of the New Haven Paint & Clay Club is its Permanent Collection of works of art. After an endowment was successfully raised for this purpose, the first paintings were bought in the 1930s. Purchases are selected from works in the Club’s two annual exhibits, and they are voted upon by the Board of Directors of the Club. Typically, from two to four works are added to the Permanent Collection each year. There are now over 300 pictures and 15 sculptures in the Collection.

From its founding in 1900, the New Haven Paint & Clay Club has published catalogs of nearly every art exhibition it has sponsored. These catalogs list the artists names, titles of works exhibited and sale prices, plus the prizes awarded and any purchases for the Club’s Permanent Collection. A complete collection of these catalogs is archived in the library of the New Haven Museum.

In September of 2000, to celebrate a century of the Club’s founding and exhibitions, a special 100th Anniversary Exhibition catalog was published. This is a 72-page booklet with 8 pages of color photos, and has 110 black and white photos of works in the Club’s Permanent Collection, with biographies of the artists involved. It also has a section on the history of the Club. These Anniversary catalogs are still available at $8 for Club members and $10 for others. To order a copy, phone Dolores Gall at 203-288-6590 or e-mail dmgall@aol.com.