Macknight, New England-born and world- traveled, was the most prominent artist to make Cape Cod his permanent home, residing for nearly half a century in East Sandwich’s historic Spring Hill neighborhood.
Wildly popular during the first part of the 20th century, Macknight nurtured friendships that included artists Vincent van Gogh, John Peter Russell, Eugène Boch, John Singer Sargent and Boston collectors Isabella Stewart Gardner, Desmond Fitzgerald, John Spaulding, Denman Waldo Ross. The artist also created an astounding garden at his beloved Hedges, a 1763 house that was also a Quaker school in its long history. The environment Macknight cultivated here attracted many prominent figures to visit his East Sandwich home, including Sargent and Gardner.
Horticulture was only one of the passions Macknight shared with his patron and friend Gardner, a deep relationship largely overlooked by biographers. His presence in her life exists not only in the room named after him at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston (the only modern artist so honored), but also in the Museum’s collections.
Drawing as its basis the historical collections of the Sandwich Glass Museum and Historical Society, the exhibit explores the various natural, artistic, social, and economic environments that shaped his art. Alongside Macnight’s art, “A Life in Color” draws on selected paintings of his circle, reproductions, photographs, books and catalogues, and surviving artifacts of his painting technique and home. Among works of art on public display will be four original watercolors from the New Bedford Free Public Library—returning to the Cape after more than a century—and, for the first time, five unique surviving sketches from Macknight’s arduous world travels.
The Dodge Macknight exhibition is supported by a generous grant from the Fund for Sandwich—Cape Cod Foundation.
2025 Sandwich Glass Museum admission rates:
Adult: $14 Senior 65+: $13 Ages 6-14: $3 Age 5 and under: Free
