current exhibition
The After Party: Pastels at the Currier
Inspired by Nicolas Party’s exhibition Nicolas Party and Surrealism: An Artist’s Take on the Movement, featuring dry pastels on a monumental scale, we invite you to explore the rich tradition behind this challenging medium through select works from our permanent collection.
Discover the luminous drawings of American Impressionists Phillip Leslie Hale, Maud Briggs Knowlton, and John Appleton Brown, whose mastery of pastel’s inherent qualities—softness, delicacy, and vibrant pigmentation—capture New England’s seasonal atmospheres and shifting natural light.
The exhibition extends beyond Impressionism to illustrate how contemporary artists Michael Mazur, Sigmund Abeles, and Diana Townsend have expanded pastel’s expressiveness through ambitious scale and emotional intensity. Like Party, these artists transform this centuries-old medium into a deeply personal vehicle for expression, employing diverse drawing techniques—from meticulously detailed to boldly gestural—that challenge conventional boundaries and reveal pastel’s remarkable versatility.
The After Party: Pastels at the Currier is on view through August 3, 2025.
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.