This winter, visitors will again have the opportunity to view the work of father and son artists John Joseph Enneking & Joseph Eliot Enneking from the Morris Cohen Collection of the CCMA permanent collection, January 28 - April 1.  This collection of paintings was given to the Cape Cod Museum of Art from the estate of the late Professor Morris Cohen.

John Joseph Enneking (1841-1916), American landscape painter, was born of German ancestry, in Minster, Ohio in 1841. The older Enneking was a plein-air painter and his favorite subject was the twilight of New England. During his lifetime, his work was known and admired all over the country; he enjoyed a distinguished career as an artist and served as president of the Boston Art club.

His love for landscapes point to the role he played in American Art History as an important link in the chain connecting the early French Impressionists to the American Impressionist movement. His first European trip, 1872 - 1876, gave him the opportunity to study the established academic methods and the flowering of French Impressionism almost a full generation before his work influenced the men and women who comprised the Boston School.

Joseph Eliot Enneking (1881-1942), studied with his father and at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with Joseph DeCamp, Frank Benson and Edmond C. Tarbell. He was an impressionist painter who recorded the New England landscape and was known for his sun-splashed landscapes.

The scientific world knows the late Professor Morris Cohen as the father of modern materials science, the winner of the Kyoto Prize and the National Science Medal.  He was also an art collector, and the collection of work he left to the Cape Cod Museum of Art attests to the fact that he was able to bring to his collection the same characteristics of discernment and enterprise that define his scientific career.

Dr. Cohen was drawn to Enneking’s work because he found it visually compelling.  The ability of an artist to attract and hold the viewer’s attention across generational frontiers is one key element in defining the success of the artist’s efforts.  

Cape Cod Museum of Art, the regional art museum of Cape Cod, the Islands and Southeastern Massachusetts, is located off Route 6A, 60 Hope Lane, on the grounds of Cape Cod Center for the Arts, Dennis. Admission: $8, free for ages 18 and younger and museum members. Gallery hours through March 31: Thursday, 10 am - 8 pm; Friday and Saturday, 10 am – 5 pm; and Sunday, noon – 5 pm. Information: 508-385-4477 or www.ccmoa.org.