MacDowell Colony

MacDowell Colony
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark District
Colony Hall and Sigma Alpha Iota Cottage
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Location	100 High Street, Peterborough, New Hampshire
Built	1907
NRHP reference #	66000026
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	October 15, 1966[1]
Designated NHLD	December 29, 1962[2]

Coordinates: 42°53′24″N 71°57′18″W / 42.89000°N 71.95500°W / 42.89000; -71.95500 The MacDowell Colony is an artists' colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell. She established the institution and its endowment chiefly with donated funds. She led the colony for almost 25 years, against a background of two world wars, the Great Depression, and other challenges.

The mission of The MacDowell Colony is to nurture the arts by offering creative individuals of the highest talent an inspiring environment in which they can produce enduring works of the imagination.

Over the years, an estimated 7,700 artists have been supported in residence, including the winners of at least 79 Pulitzer Prizes, 781 Guggenheim Fellowships, 100 Rome Prizes, 30 National Book Awards, 26 Tony Awards, 24 MacArthur Fellowships, 9 Grammys, 8 Oscars, and 8 National Medals for the Arts.^[3] The colony has accepted visual and interdisciplinary artists, architects, filmmakers, composers, playwrights, poets, and writers, both well-known and unknown.^[4]

Awards

In 1962, the colony was designated a National Historic Landmark.^[2][5][6]

In 1997, the colony was awarded the National Medal of Arts.^[7]

Notable works

Bond Hall in 2012

• Aaron Copland worked there on composing the orchestral suite Appalachian Spring (1944), a 1945 Pulitzer winner.^[8]
• Spalding Gray worked on his novel The Impossible Vacation and later chronicled his experiences at MacDowell Colony in his extended monologue Monster in a Box.^[9]
• Leonard Bernstein completed his Mass.
• Thornton Wilder wrote Our Town and The Bridge of San Luis Rey.
• James Baldwin wrote Giovanni’s Room.
• Willa Cather wrote Death Comes for the Archbishop.
• Dubose and Dorothy Heyward wrote Porgy and Bess.
• Virgil Thomson worked on Mother of Us All
• Alice Walker worked on her first novel and Meridian at MacDowell
• Michael Chabon wrote The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a 2001 Pulitzer winner. Chabon became Chairman of the Colony in 2010.^[10]
• Alice Sebold wrote The Lovely Bones.
• Jonathan Franzen completed The Corrections.

History

The composer Edward MacDowell was one of the first seven members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He believed that interdisciplinary associations among artists were valuable.

In 1896, Marian MacDowell bought Hillcrest Farm in Peterborough, New Hampshire, as a summer residence for herself and her husband. She had always been careful to give him a quiet room for his work. Edward MacDowell found that the New Hampshire landscape enhanced his work of composing music.

The couple formulated a plan to provide an interdisciplinary experience in a nurturing landscape, by creating an institutionalized residential art colony in the area. In 1904, Edward MacDowell began to show signs of an illness that ended his composing and teaching career. He would die in 1908.^[11]

In 1907, Marian MacDowell deeded their farm to the Edward MacDowell Association and founded the MacDowell Colony. The first guests arrived that year: sisters Helen Farnsworth Mears, a sculptor, and Mary Mears, a writer. MacDowell began by inviting applicants personally, but by the 1920s had consigned the admission process to a committee.

Marian and friends raised funds among a wide variety of people for the colony, which was supported by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, former U.S. President Grover Cleveland, financier J. P. Morgan, other prominent people, as well as many others across the country. MacDowell said the most consistent support came from women's clubs and professional music sororities (see, for example, the MacDowell Club of New York). At the age of 50, MacDowell began lecturing to women's groups to raise funds, resumed her performing career, and became a noted interpreter of her husband's work.

By 1918, 31 of Isabelle Sprague Smith's students funded the creation of the Isabelle D. Sprague Smith studio.^[12] Through the years more separate studios were built. The program continues in 32 studios scattered over 450 acres (1.8 km²) of land.

Medal Day

Every year, the colony presents the Edward MacDowell Medal to an artist who has made a significant cultural contribution. Residency at the colony is not a requirement. Medal Day is one of the rare occasions when the colony is open to the public. The ceremony includes a keynote speech, after which the artists open their studios to visitors.^[13]

Property-tax exemption dispute

The colony, a non-profit organization, enjoys the status of a charity, entitling it to exemption from local property taxes, among other things. However, in 2005, the town of Peterborough's selectmen (local-government executives) decided to challenge MacDowell's charitable status and billed the colony for a "payment in lieu of taxes". A lawyer for the town argued that "the colony certainly benefits its artists-in-residence, but that doesn't strike us as being the general public."^[14]

The colony's board of directors paid the bill, then successfully challenged the charge.^[15] A 2007 Superior Court opinion found that the MacDowell Colony, by promoting the arts, was a charitable institution, a ruling that was upheld by the New Hampshire Supreme Court in a subsequent appeal.^[16]:p13 The appeal court found that "Contrary to the Town's assertions, MacDowell's articles of incorporation oblige it to use its property for its stated charitable purpose."^[16]:p11

See also

• List of National Historic Landmarks in New Hampshire
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire

References

Further reading

• Siegel J. (March 18, 2008). "The blood sucking vampires are circling: a victory for charity that should make all charities nervous". Charity Governance Consulting LLC. Archived from the original on September 12, 2011.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to MacDowell Colony.

• The MacDowell Colony
• Portable MacDowell
• "Exhibits: The MacDowell Colony 1907–2007". Library of Congress. 2007.
• AP (December 21, 2006). "Story about the taxes". Ap.org.
• Hagedorn, Hermann (December 28, 1921). "The Peterborough Colony: "A Workshop, With A Wonderland Thrown In," For Creative Workers In The Seven Arts". The Outlook. Outlook Publishing Company, Inc. 129: 686–688. Retrieved 2009-07-30.