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The Everson Museum of Art has had several homes throughout its history. The Museum, which began as the Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts in 1897, first rented space in the Onondaga County Savings Bank, located adjacent to Clinton Square in downtown Syracuse. In 1906, the Museum moved a few blocks southeast of their first home into a rented room in the Syracuse Public Library’s Carnegie Building on the corner of Montgomery and Jefferson Streets. The Museum quickly outgrew this space, and in 1915 expanded into the entire third floor of the public library. Read More

Frank Goodnow (1923-2004) was born in Evanston, Illinois, and first studied art in Chicago at the now-closed Frederic Mizen Academy of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. His education was interrupted by America’s entry into World War II, and in 1942, Goodnow enlisted in the military, where he served for four years in the United States Army Medical Corps. When the war ended, Goodnow resumed his studies, first enrolling in Northwestern University and then again at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1948. Upon graduation, Goodnow received a fellowship allowing him to study abroad. Read More

Born and raised in Maine, Glidden Parker (1913-1980) began his studies at Bates College in order to become a writer. He graduated in 1935 with a B.A. in literature, and spent the following year in Vienna, studying an array of topics, including philosophy, film, comparative literature, and German literature. After returning home to Maine, where he worked for a time on a never-published novel, Parker travelled to Alfred, New York, to visit with relatives in 1937. In Alfred, he became familiar with the ceramics department at Alfred University and fell in love with the medium of clay. Parker enrolled as a ceramics student and studied at the university from 1937 to 1939. Read More

Born in Portland, Maine, Walter Parson Shaw Griffin (1861-1935) was an American landscape painter. Griffin studied painting in Boston, and later traveled to Paris, France in both 1910 and 1923 to continue his studies. In Paris, Griffin was taught by prominent painters Louis Raphaël Collin and Jean-Paul Laurens. Griffin also befriended the French painter Jean-François Millet during his travels to the rural villages of Fleury and Fontainebleau. Millet was a founder of the Barbizon school of painters, an artistic movement that is generally seen as a transition between the dominant Romantic movement and the developing Realism movement. Through Millet and his time in rural France, Griffin began to concentrate on landscape painting. Griffin’s European sojourn also allowed him to visit Venice. Read More

Given that the Great Depression caused a worldwide economic downturn that specifically ravaged the United States, it may be surprising to learn that in the 1930s refrigerators became commonplace in American homes. Their newfound prominence in the kitchen distanced modern refrigerator-owners from the outmoded use of iceboxes and cellar storage. Refrigerators were marketed as sanitary and modern. High demand for the household appliances meant that competition between retailers was fierce. Read More