The Cooley Gallery is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary with a special holiday exhibition: Dear Santa, Please Bring Me All Paintings Great and Small.  

Jeff Cooley, owner and director of the gallery notes, “We thought we’d pull out all the stops for this exhibition and combine two of our favorite holiday shows. We’ve had so many requests to bring back our little painting show “All Paintings Great and Small,” and we love the mix in Dear Santa. Dear Santa’s about visual discoveries: jewelry, craft and anything unexpected and All Paintings Great and Small is about the perfect picture under 12”. We want people to come to the gallery and get involved and excited about American art.”
 
The Cooley Gallery opened its doors on 25 Lyme Street in Old Lyme in 1986, specializing in American art from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Over that period the gallery has exhibited major Hudson River School and Old Lyme Impressionist art in addition to sculpture, photography and all kinds of contemporary art.  Jeff Cooley says, “We’ve become a fixture in the Old Lyme art scene after all these years and I am very proud of that but it also means we have to keep raising the bar and show the very best we can offer.  During the holidays people appreciate little works of art because they seem more affordable and you can always find space for it – somewhere.”
 
The gallery will celebrate this exhibition with an opening reception from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday, November 17th and the show runs until January 7th. The exhibition will be a combination of historic and contemporary artists with works numbering in the hundreds. The exhibition will be available online at www.cooleygallery.com.
 
“Dear Santa, Please Bring Me All Paintings Great and Small!”

November 17th through January 7th, 2012
Opening Reception Thursday, November 17th 5 – 8 p.m.