Making A Splash: Beach Fashions, 1850-1920,

At Wadsworth Atheneum

HARTFORD — Just in time for summer, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art will present “Making a Splash: American Beach Fashions, 1850–1920,” February 23–July 13. The exhibition complements the concurrent international loan exhibition, “Impressionists by the Sea,” which closes May 11.

During the Victorian and Edwardian eras, the beach was a summertime playground for day-trippers and vacationers seeking relief from the heat and dirt of the city. Resort hotels, luxurious villas and amusement palaces sprouted along the coastlines of Europe and the United States to cater to tourists.

Sea bathing changed from a therapy treatment to a health-giving recreation, although swimming was not yet considered appropriate for females. Women rattled about in “bathing machines” that discreetly carried them into the ocean, where they would venture out with a rope tethered around their waists, or they waded in shallow water.

A “water cure” outfit and a gymnasium suit, both of which feature pantaloons or bloomers to protect a woman’s modesty, open the exhibition. Such styling was the precursor to the woman’s bathing costume.

Because promenading along the beach was a popular activity, “Making a Splash” is arranged as a stroll on the boardwalk. The dresses and parasols on view, dating from the 1850s through the 1910s, resemble those of fashionable ladies in paintings by Boudin and Monet.

Among the delightful and rare apparel are a girl’s bathing costume, two boy’s sailor suits, and two men’s swimsuits from the turn of the last century (trunks alone were not permitted in public until the 1930s). The exhibition closes as women’s silhouettes undergo a radical change in the early 20th Century, exemplified by tunic-like, leg-revealing bathing outfits.

“Making a Splash” has been organized by guest curator Lynne Z. Bassett, an independent scholar who is a former curator at Old Sturbridge Village and Historic Northampton.

“Impressionists By The Sea” is an exploration of the transformation of Normandy & Brittany coasts as depicted by French artists of the 19th Century, including Monet, Renoir and Manet, et al, compared to works of their predecessors (Corot, Courbet, Isabey, Jongkind and Whistler) and contemporaries allied with the Paris Salon (Boudin, Daubigny and Pelouse), all arranged chronologically. The major exhibition also offers travel books and postcards of the period.

Please note there is a special exhibitions fee of $10 in addition to regular museum admission for those wishing to view “Impressionists By The Sea,” and reservations are strongly recommended for the exhibition.

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is at 600 Main Street. For more information, visit WadsworthAtheneum.org or call 860-278-2670.