MacDowell Colony
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The MacDowell Colony is an art colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, wife of composer Edward MacDowell, largely with donated funds.
At least 61 Pulitzer Prizes have been received by the roughly 5,100 artists who have been in residence over the years.
Stays average four to five weeks and are limited to two months. Room and board are free, and some residents receive help with travel expenses as well. Each artist is assigned one of 32 studios for their personal use on a 24-hour-a-day basis; each of these is a separate building with power, heat, simple amenities, lunch delivered, no telephone, and the expectation that interruptions will be by invitation only. In nearly every case, the studios are out of view of each other.
The artists are a community of between 20 and 30, sharing breakfast and dinner in a common dining room, and frequently engaging in group activities in the evenings.
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[edit] Notable colony-created works
- Thornton Wilder wrote his play "Our Town" (which won a Pulitzer in 1938).
- Aaron Copland worked on composing Appalachian Spring (a 1945 Pulitzer winner).
- Virgil Thompson worked on composing Mother of Us All.
- Leonard Bernstein finished his Mass.
- Ruth Crawford Seeger worked on composing 5 Songs Set to Poems by Carl Sandburg.
- Michael Chabon worked on his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay in the Heyward studio
- Dubose Heyward worked on Porgy & Bess
[edit] History
MacDowell had concluded, from experience including his involvement in founding the American Academy in Rome (the benefactor of American Prix de Rome awards) that interdisciplinary associations among artists were valuable. The MacDowells bought a farm in Peterborough in 1896, where he judged the surroundings during summers to enhance his creativity as a composer of music. They formulated a plan for providing both kinds of benefits through an institutionalized residential art colony, and in 1906 raised funds for the purpose, contributed by former U.S. President Grover Cleveland, industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, the financier J. P. Morgan, and other prominent people.
The first residents came the next year, and the program continues in dozens of buildings scattered over 450 acres (1.8 km²) of land.
[edit] 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 [1].
[edit] Tax status
The colony has always avoided paying property taxes as a non-profit organization, but in 2005, the board of selectmen of Peterborough revoked much of that status and asked the colony to pay $50,000 a year to cover services such as snowplowing, police and firefighters. The colony currently pays a tax of $9,000 on land not used for its central mission. The colony paid the bill but contested its taxable status and seeking a refund in court. On March 1, a Hillsborough County Superior Court judge agreed with the colony and threw out the taxable status; the town is considering whether to appeal to the state Supreme Court. [2]
