Whistler House Museum of Art

CONTACT:

243 Worthen Street
Lowell, MA 01852
978 452 - 7641
www.whistlerhouse.org

Michael H. Lally

DESCRIPTION:

This is a very interestingly challenged small museum that needs your help. Whistler House was built in 1823, when Lowell was entering its Industrial Revolution heyday. Its served as home to the chief engineers of the Lowell Locks and Canal Corporation, which provided the waterpower driving the Lowell Mills. One of those engineers moved into the house with his wife in 1834, and while resident there they had a son: James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), who became one of America's best-known painters. In 1908 the house was purchased by the Lowell Art Association (inc. 1878) to become a permanent home for art in Lowell. It has a collection of about 300 representative works of 19th- and early 20th-century American artists, and about 370 members; its annual visitation is climbing rapidly, more than doubling from 1996-1998. Its immediate neighborhood is known as the "Acre" section of Lowell, now one of the most ethnically diverse parts of the city. Its programs, especially a very popular school program for 3rd graders, are designed to engage children and youth in the arts. But an arts institution at this scale needs growth investments. Here you can truly make a difference.

(1999: CULTURE: Arts: Visual, Literary and Crafts)