Hammond Castle Museum presents a new temporary art exhibition featuring works by Eric Pape (1870-1938), an artist almost lost to history, who had close ties to Gloucester.
Pape, a summer resident, was the designer of the 1907 “Tablet Rock Memorial” plaque in Stage Fort Park on Gloucester Harbor. But his talents are in full display with his prolific artworks, which include a mural at the museum. Many of his works have not been seen publicly in nearly a century.
This exhibition is expected to be the largest collection of Pape’s artworks ever on public display, according to the museum. The show, titled “Eric Pape: The Fair God,” opens Saturday, April 5, and runs through April 27.
Most of the nearly 60 artworks in the show are on loan from the private collection of Pape collector and biographer Dr. Gregory Conn, the leading expert on the Golden Age artist, illustrator and educator.
The first show of Pape’s work at the museum coincided with Gloucester’s 400th commemoration in 2023, followed by a temporary exhibit of other works last year.
Pape was close friends with two generations of the Hammond family, the mining magnate John Hays Hammond and his son John Hays Hammond Jr., an American inventor who built the oceanfront estate.
This third exhibition came together after Thomas Meeks, curator of the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum in Indiana, reached out to Conn for verification of several illustrations from Wallace’s 1873 publication “The Fair God.” Lew Wallace was a Civil War Union general, lawyer and author, who also wrote “Ben Hur” on which the Hollywood film was based.
The artworks featured in the deluxe edition of “The Fair God” were by Pape and found in Pape’s famed Annisquam “Locked Studio,” which was sealed for decades after his death. The studio was reopened in the late 1980s and in it were found dozens of his works, the museum said.
This past winter, Conn sponsored the restoration of these works, and this exhibit marks their debut, which coincides with the release of Conn’s hard-bound catalog of works in the exhibit.
Other works chosen for this exhibition include several large-scale pastel portraits by Pape and an early painting from Pape’s 1890 trip to Egypt, on loan from a private collector, titled “The Last Soldier,” a painting of the Sphinx by moonlight.
Additionally, visitors to the museum can view the three Pape paintings on permanent display in their respective galleries, including Pape’s sole surviving mural, “The Wireless Naval Battle of Gloucester Bay,” a gift for John Hays Hammond Jr.
Also featured in the show are five mixed media works by contemporary Spanish artist Alberto Romero, including a portrait of Eric Pape. Romero’s work has received attention in Spain and Central America.
The museum shop will host a limited number of signed copies of Conn’s latest publication, a hardcover catalog of the exhibit. The new catalog, as well as Conn’s previous publications on Pape, are available on ericpape.com.
The exhibition patron is Mollie Byrnes, and Conn is the exhibition sponsor.
All proceeds will support the ongoing restoration and preservation of Hammond Castle Museum.
Gail McCarthy may be contacted at 978-675-2706, or gmccarthy@northofboston.com.