Traveling Exhibitions

The New Bedford Whaling Museum offers a variety of touring special exhibitions that vary based on kind and number of objects, square footage, and facility requirements.

for more information, email: curatorial@whalingmuseum.org

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De Wind is Op! Climate, Culture and Innovation in Dutch Maritime Painting

Space requirements: flexible checklist can fill 4,000-6,000 square foot gallery

60 unique collection objects, including prints, paintings, and decorative arts
Introductory text, 12 thematic didactic panels, and individual object labels
Museum staff/docent training
Marketing collateral, graphic design elements, and video and text for PR
Need to meet certain light-level, environmental, and security conditions

Between 1581 and 1648, the newly independent Dutch Republic developed a unique identity related to maritime prowess and global exchange networks. Starting with the founding of the Dutch East India Company in 1602 and West India Company in 1621, Holland became a world emporium, trading timber, grain, salt, cloth, whale oil and other luxury materials throughout the world, between far-flung colonial territories and regional waterways. Dutch collective identity was shaped by the sea and seafaring, and the Dutch art world reflected changing ideas about the sea, material networks, and the environment. Critical to this exchange was the rise of maritime pictures, ship models, furniture, prints, and tiles. This exhibition comprises 60 objects, including paintings, prints, tiles, rare books, and furniture that showcase how wind, climate, and the sea forged a uniquely Dutch national identity. The Dutch manipulated their own watery landscapes with dams and wind power and created artworks that celebrated innovation. Dutch artists invented seascape painting and embedded their images of storm-tossed ships, whaling, and arctic disasters with moral and nationalistic messages. These works demonstrate how the climate of the time, deemed the “Little Ice Age,” perfectly coincided with one of the most culturally and economically lucrative eras in Dutch history, the “Dutch Golden Age.” Interpretive text on climate change and two contemporary artworks, a glacial ledge in porcelain by Paula Winokur (1936-2018) and the artist book “The Island Whale” by Anneli Skaar (b. 1969) link climate narratives of the past to the present and prompt visitors to consider our shared future.

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The Art of “Moby-Dick, or the Whale”

Space requirements: 2000-3000 square foot gallery

Over 45 unique collection objects, including prints, paintings, and rare books
6 thematic didactic panels, and individual object labels
12 quotations, designed for vinyl reproduction
Teacher resources and in-gallery activities
Museum staff/docent training
Marketing collateral, graphic design elements, and video and text for PR
Need to meet certain light-level, environmental, and security conditions

When Herman Melville published Moby-Dick; or, The Whale in 1851, it was not the break-away hit we might imagine. Instead, it was a commercial failure and received negative criticism due to its lengthy prose. Today it is regarded as one of the greatest American novels ever written, and many booklovers are drawn to its pages for repeated readings. Visual artists, in particular, have found inspiration in Melville’s poetic use of language, descriptive text, and philosophical underpinnings. This exhibition brings together over 45 dazzling works on paper by celebrated modern and contemporary artists, quotations from the novel in question, and rare printings of the book, to exemplify the flexibility and dynamism of Melville’s text as a source for artmaking. Works by Matt Kish, Laura Bird, Leonard Baskin, Karl Knaths, Robert Del Tredeci, and Frank Stella, among others reveal Melville’s novel as a flexible mirror for the exploration of deep and timeless themes about humanity, nature, and the internal and external worlds. The exhibition promises to be a visual crowd-pleaser and offers myriad programming opportunities offered in partnership with the organizing institution.

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A Spectacle in Motion: The Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage 'Round the World

Space requirements: ca. 3,000-5000 square foot gallery

45 unique collection objects, including a 1,275-foot-long painting
Design for an up-to 40’ long specially-designed display table with metal reel holders
One digital interactive kiosk that links to ArcGIS content
Over 50 interpretive panels that address artists, scenery, panoramas, and conservation
9 graphic banners
One large free-standing hand-driven crank panorama
One 34-minute digital film of the entire panorama with narration
Museum staff/docent training
Marketing collateral, graphic design elements, and video and text for PR
Need to meet certain light-level, environmental, and security conditions

In 1848, New Bedford artists Benjamin Russell and Caleb Purrington completed the Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World. Russell was an emerging artist and bankrupt whaling investor who had just spent 42 months (1841-1844) on a whaling voyage to the Indian Ocean and North Pacific. When he returned, Purrington joined him in creating this massive painting as a commercial enterprise for public entertainment. This 1,275-foot long and 8-foot-high painting travelled nationally transported by train, ship, and wagon to Boston, New York and as far West as St. Louis, where it was displayed as a moving theatrical in public halls for paying audiences. In an era before the age of cinema, the Panorama is a rare surviving example of a commercial entertainment, designed to stun viewers with tales of adventure and life on the high seas. This era’s popular entertainment was dominated by illusion and spectacle, the exotic and the unknown. This was the age of the traveling circus, public theater, pantomimes, the curiosities sideshow, and the birth of grand World’s Fairs. The Panorama, which is owned and preserved by the New Bedford Whaling Museum, depicts in fascinating detail the voyage of a typical mid-19th century New Bedford whaleship on its journey ‘round the world’ in pursuit of whales. Along the way, it depicts scenes (some from Russell’s experience, some historic, and some imagined) in such far-flung places as the Azores, Cape Verde, Brazil, Tahiti, and Hawaii. People, places, vessels, wildlife, and events spring to life as they were seen from a 19th-century perspective.

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Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) and the Arctic Imaginary

Space requirements: 1500 square foot gallery

Over 60 unique collection objects, including prints, paintings, and decorative arts
4 thematic didactic panels, and individual object labels
Teacher resources and in-gallery activities
Museum staff/docent training
Marketing collateral, graphic design elements, and video and text for PR
Need to meet certain light-level, environmental, and security conditions

The polar bear (Ursus maritimus), also called white bear, sea bear, ice bear, or great white northern bear are found throughout the Arctic region. With global warming, they are also increasingly threatened. This exhibition explores humankind’s fascination with and relationship towards this vaunted and elusive species. British, German, Dutch, and American prints, join Inupiat carvings, baleen baskets, and pincushions trimmed with polar bear fur, historic photographs, Pairpoint glass, salt & pepper shakers, Delft tiles, and decorated dinner plates, and paintings picturing polar bears. Such materials underscore how polar bears have been central subjects of historical artworks and material culture and continue to be dominant in the arctic imaginary. Contemporary works add to this rich tapestry, signaling the current cultural and environmental importance of this animal and their threatened status due to the ongoing effects of global warming, which rapidly reduces Arctic sea ice coverage. Population models predict increased rates of starvation for polar bears, because of longer ice-free seasons, decline in mating success, and less nutrient rich foods, and suggest polar bear populations will decline by one-third by 2050. This exhibition spotlights the perilous position that polar bears find themselves in, thanks to human activity, and offers a space for conversation and dialogue regarding the future of the species.

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Seals and Society

Space requirements: ca. 1,000 square foot gallery

13 collapsible vinyl panels with aluminum display frames
Four full-color floor mats of seals
Educational resource kit with scientific specimens, puzzles, signage, and games
1 screen with video
Additional optional exhibition materials
Museum staff/docent training
Marketing collateral, graphic design elements, and video and text for PR
No light-level, environmental, and security conditions

We share our shores with seals. What does that mean now? What has it meant historically? Seals and Society is a multi-panel exhibition that dives into the daily lives of these specially adapted animals with a focus on harbor and gray seals, the two most locally abundant species in the northeast region. Stunning photographs, custom graphics, and up-to-date research data bring the viewer into seals’ watery habitat to help us understand their world and our relationships to these animals. Accompanied by rich didactic and educational collateral, visitors learn how different people and cultures relate to seals, how seals forage and sense their world, and where they go and why. This exhibition encourages audiences to explore the cultural and natural histories of seals and our dynamic and evolving relationship with them on the Northeast Coast of North America.

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