Reception: Friday, January 29, 5–7 pm
From Amazing Stories to Weird Tales: Covering Pulp Fiction
Hugh J. Ward, cover art for the April 1938 issue of Spicy Western StoriesPulp magazines, named for their low quality pulpwood paper, were a popular form of leisure reading in America from the 1920s until the late 1940s. Sold mainly at newsstands, their covers were carefully designed with bold primary colors and dramatic compositions to seduce passers-by with a glimpse into the sensational stories within. Over fifty oil paintings on which these flashy covers were based are included in this exhibition. Like the pulp magazines themselves, the original pulp illustrations were considered of no value and the majority of them discarded in the decades after their production. They have since becomes the objects of great devotion among collectors and fans. The works in this exhibition are from the collection of Robert Lesser, on loan to the New Britain Museum of American Art. Mr. Lesser is one of the most avid collectors of pulp memorabilia.
The paintings in this exhibition date to very grim times in America, the years of the Great Depression and World War II. As cover art, they were crucial to pulp magazines’ appeal as a cheap escape from harsh day-to-day realities, a thrilling journey away from the mundane. They were an alternative to the more mannered mainstream publications, the "slicks," with their soothing vision of apple pie America in the vein of Norman Rockwell’s Saturday Evening Post covers. In the pulps, gratuitous sex and violence prevailed, as the paintings illustrate.
With the proliferation of specialized pulps beginning in the 1930s, readers were invited to "pick their poison": westerns, science fiction, mystery, fantasy, and horror among others. Genre-oriented pulp publications helped form visual and narrative conventions that carried into later pop cultural phenomena such as B-movie science fiction, film noir, comic books and Hollywood renditions of pulp heroes Tarzan and Zorro. For example, Dime Detective was instrumental in establishing the formula for the "hard-boiled" detective in fiction and film. The publication of Amazing Stories was critical in the formation of science fiction as a recognized literary and pictorial type.
Aside from the popular romance genre that targeted young women, the majority of pulp magazines catered to male audiences. Their covers featured dramatic moments in the adventures of square-jawed heroes, brutish villains of every type, and young damsels at the pinnacle of distress and in various states of undress. To a contemporary viewer, some imagery translates as delightfully na?ve while other depictions reflect deep-seated racial prejudice and misogyny. In either case, the paintings provide fascinating insight into the fantasies and fears consumed by millions during a period of great turmoil in America.
The paintings in this exhibition are on loan from the Robert Lesser Collection of Pulp Fiction Covers, a promised gift to the New Britain Museum of American Art.
January 21–March 21Reception: Friday, January 29, 5–7 pm
The Old and The New: Recent Acquisitions and Works from the Collections
William Hogarth, Strolling Actresses in a Barn, engraving, 1738. Robert S. and Naomi C. Dennison Acquisition Fund.Reception: Thursday, April 1, 5–7 pm
CounterMart, An Installation by Abby Manock
Abby Manock, still from Counters video, 2008Reception: Thursday, April 1, 5–7 pm
Poem & Picture
Olga Rozanova and Kasimir Malevich, Ingra v adu (A Game in Hell)., lithograph, 1914. Alumni Annual Giving Program, 1982.Reception: Thursday, April 1, 5–7 pm
The 2010 Master of Fine Arts Exhibition
This celebration of the creative talents of the Class of 2010 in the Master of Fine Arts program in Studio Art showcases the works of Lauren Laudano (sculpture), Kasey Lindley (painting and multi-media installation), Katie Mansfield (photography, sculpture), Owen McKenzie



