past exhibition
Celebrating the Art and Life of Tomie dePaola
Now on view
It is the Currier’s privilege to celebrate the United States Postal Service’s release of a Forever stamp in recognition of Tomie dePaola’s life and art.
The Forever stamp features a detail from the cover of Strega Nona, dePaola’s 1975 illustrated book that received the Caldecott Honor Award as one of the best picture books of the year.
Tomie dePaola (1934-2020) wrote and/or illustrated some 270 children’s books over his 50-year career, including picture books, folk tales, nursery rhymes, and chapter books. dePaola had a masterful ability to express complicated emotions through accessible narratives and dynamic illustrations filled with his warm and lively characters. A longtime resident of New Hampshire, dePaola taught at Colby-Sawyer College in New London, and New England College in Henniker.
He had an enormous international following and appeared in several episodes of Barney & Friends as himself and in the Jim Henson Company series Telling Stories with Tomie dePaola. He was honored as Living Treasure in the Arts and received many national accolades including the Children’s Literature Legacy Award.
Today, the Currier Museum of Art’s collection holds several hundred works by Tomie dePaola. We invite you to reminisce in the work of dePaola, now on view.
Tomie dePaola Art Education Fund
Tomie’s gift was to see the goodness in the world around us. From The Art Lesson, teaching us that quality art materials really do MATTER to a precocious grade school artist who finds himself through his art, to Tomie’s final wish to “quiet” our unruly world in his last illustrated book, Tomie’s lesson was to always be present and creative in the world.
Today, the Currier proudly stewards the Tomie dePaola Art Education Fund for children and teens receiving tuition-free classes in the Currier Museum’s studio art program. Your gift provides children and teens from economically challenged circumstances access to classes and vacation art camps, with up to 30 hours of formal art instruction; the use of quality art supplies (a priority of Tomie’s!); and access to the Currier’s galleries anytime.
Please consider doing your part to support the Tomie dePaola Art Education Fund today.
Make the world a better place, one art student at a time.
upcoming exhibitions
past exhibitions
Archived material on past exhibitions can be explored further here, and recent past exhibition catalogues are available through the museum shop.
artist in residence
Our Artist-in-Residence (AIR) program invites artists to live and work at the museum. While in residence, artists consider the collection and community, and refresh our perspectives on the role of the museum. The program is central to the Currier Museum’s mission of connecting our audiences with art and creative thinking, whether of the past or the future. We hope to learn from our visiting artists – and be surprised by their perspectives.
Artists working in all media participate in the AIR program, which has three main components: 1) an open call to support emerging artists making socially engaged art; 2) an invitational through which artists are selected to develop special projects, commissions, or exhibitions; and 3) artist-led, community-centered public art projects in the city of Nashua, NH.
Open Call for Artist in Residence Applications
Our annual open call is currently live from October 1 – December 1, 2022. Artists who share the museum’s goal of positively impacting communities through the transformative power of art are encouraged to apply to this residency.