Mattatuck Museum Has Two Exhibits For Winter

WATERBURY — Curators are hoping that the two new exhibits in the changing exhibit galleries at Mattatuck Museum will help cure the winter doldrums.

The whimsy and charm of antique toys should delight both the young and young at heart with an exhibit of toys and dolls circa 1825 to World War I. Included in the exhibit are items such as tin race car, a trolley car, and a hook and ladder wagon.

Dolls represented include a French fashion doll and a local rag doll from around 1870, and a furnished dollhouse given to the museum in 1941 by Helen Whittemore Adams. The dollhouse was last on display as part of the permanent collection when the museum was still in its former location at 119 West Main Street.

The second exhibit features a display of 73 paintings by William Merritt Post (1858-1935). Post was a prominent Connecticut-based landscape painter of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries who lived in West Morris.

The museum mounted an exhibit of Post’s work three years ago, following the generous donation of the Reinhold collection by Ann and Ted Tolman. The works currently on display are from that collection, many of which have not been publicly displayed before.

The paintings in the exhibit were created between 1880 and 1915 in the artist’s favorite places to sketch – northern New Jersey, northwest Connecticut, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Both exhibits will run through the winter. Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm; and Sundays, noon to 5 pm. The museum’s café and store are open Tuesday through Friday from 11:30 am to 2:30 pm.

General museum admission is $4 for adults, free for children. Mattatuck Museum, at 144 West Main Street in downtown Waterbury, can be reached at 203/753-0381.