GLOUCESTER, MASS.- Since its founding in 1889, Addison Gilbert Hospital has amassed an extensive and impressive art collection numbering more than 300 works, including oil paintings, watercolors and prints. A selection of these works will be on view at the Cape Ann Museum Green (CAM Green), starting today.

“Addison Gilbert Hospital’s prominent collection is a little-known secret around much of Cape Ann, familiar mostly to staff, patients and families who have admired the works while passing through offices and hallways there and have donated them in thanks to the hospital for its continued commitment to quality care,” said Museum Director Oliver Barker. “Now, as part of the citywide celebration of our 400-plus anniversary, it is the Museum’s pleasure to highlight works from the hospital’s collection in the Janet & William Ellery James Center at CAM Green just down the street from the hospital itself.”

The hospital was founded by Addison Gilbert (1808-1888), a local merchant whose family lived in Gloucester for generations. Upon his death, Gilbert gifted $100,000 to the city to build a free hospital for the community on Washington Street. It took eight years to build, and the first patient was admitted in June 1897. Today, Addison Gilbert Hospital operates in concert with Beverly Hospital, and together they are part of the Beth Israel Lahey Health network. 

The majority of artists featured in the Hospital’s collection worked on Cape Ann during the 20th century.

“The crown jewel of the hospital’s collection is an oil painting of Gloucester Harbor done in the 1850s by Fitz Henry Lane (1804-1965). That work has been at the Cape Ann Museum since the mid-1970s, where it is safely and prominently displayed along with other paintings by Lane,” writes Chief Cape Ann Museum Curator Martha Oaks in a gallery guide that accompanies the Cape Ann Museum Green exhibition.

Several of the Addison Gilbert works on view in the Janet & William Ellery James Center at CAM Green are by women artists, including East Gloucester painter Alice Beach Winter (1877-1968); Louise Upton Brumback (1867-1929), a painter and founding president of the Gloucester Society of Artists in 1922; Bertha Peyton (1871-1947), an East Gloucester painter; as well as Vera Andrus (1895-1979), a printmaker, painter and book illustrator. There are also works by Annisquam watercolorist Harry Gage (1887-1982), who served as chair of the Cape Ann Arts Council, founded in 1955.

Other noteworthy paintings in the display include works by Stanley Woodward (1890-1970); Emile Gruppe (1896-1978), a prominent artist from Gloucester’s Rocky Neck area; and well-known landscape painter and teacher Charles Movalli (1945-2016).

Historic medical-related artifacts and photographs from Addison Gilbert Hospital are also featured in the exhibit.  

“Addison Gilbert Hospital is proud to be part of the fabric of Gloucester’s storied history for more than a century, and we are honored to be entrusted with providing the residents who call this region home with the extraordinary medical services and health care they deserve,” said Jason Andree, PharmD, RPH, Vice President of Addison Gilbert Hospital.  

“We are delighted to collaborate with Cape Ann Museum in sharing a portion of our treasured art collection gifted by our patients and their families over the years with the community. These works exemplify what Addison Gilbert Hospital means to the individuals we serve and to the value our colleagues hold in ensuring the overall health and well-being of our greater community for the next century to come,” Andree said.  

Cape Ann Museum
Addison Gilbert Hospital Collection
August 11th, 2023 - October 8th, 2023