Ipswich Days: Arthur Wesley Dow and His Hometown (Addison Gallery of American Art)

Born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, Arthur Wesley Dow (1857–1922) is renowned for his paintings and prints that take their subject matter from nature and reflect the orderly design and fine handcrafting championed by the Arts and Crafts movement. This charming bookpresents an important discovery―a previously undocumented photograph album titled Ipswich Days comprising forty-one cyanotypes that Dow produced in 1899. Dedicated to his poet-friend Everett Stanley Hubbard, Ipswich Days offers a fresh new look at Dow’s attention to the abstract aspects of form, color, and cropping in the creation of his designs while documenting his deep personal attachment to his rural and historic hometown.

Ipswich Days analyzes this album and its significance in the artist’s career. Each of the images––which depict Ipswich’s clam shanties, marshes, farms, people, trees, flowers, and boats alike––is handsomely reproduced and reflects the beauty that Dow saw and interpreted in this quintessentially New England town.