While the Silvermine Arts Center is technically located in New Canaan, the Silvermine the neighborhood straddles the Norwalk, Wilton, and New Canaan borders. This speaks to its early years, a place where local artists could gather and experience what then was the rolling hills of Connecticut farmland. Today the Silvermine Arts Center is made up of a school, 5 galleries and a guild. Founded over 100 years ago, sculptor Solon Borglum helped found the “Knockers Club” of artists. Knocking, in the lingo of that era, meant critiquing, and the club grew into the original Silvermine Group of Artists.
Other sculptors and painters soon followed. For a number of years they met on Sundays in Borglum’s studio/barn to socialize, exchange ideas or “knock” each other’s work. For more than a decade, The Knockers exhibited their work once a year in Borglum’s studio, attracting hundreds of viewers from near and far. His brother, Gutzon Borglum was the sculptor of Mt. Rushmore. Works of the American West by Solon Borglum can be found in the permanent collection at the New Britain Museum of American Art, at St. Mark’s Church in New York City, and at the Silvermine Arts Center. The Kockers Club evolved into the the Silvermine Guild of Artists in 1922 after the sudden death of Solon. The artists wanted to maintain the artist enclave and formerly established the Silvermine School of Art in 1924.
Today the Silvermine School of Art is the artists community center for not only the region, but through its programming like the annual Art of the Northeast show, the school and guild have developed a platform for both established and emerging artists. Many of the artists who have came to the the school or shown at the gallery receive national acclaim. Jurors have included major critics, curators and directors from some of the New York City’s influential contemporary art institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Whitney Museum.
1037 Silvermine Road in New Canaan. For information, www.silvermineart.org or 203-966-9700.
