For every piece of beautiful art hanging in a distinguished gallery, imagine the countless of others that never quite made it. Picture an artist approaching their easel with the high hopes of creating a masterpiece, but with every brush stroke comes the sinking feeling that its not coming out quite as good as they hoped; perhaps the feet look wonky, the face is a bit peculiar, or the well intentioned imagery has gone somewhat awry. Despite all one’s best intentions, you’ve painted something awful, never to be seen in a gallery to popular acclaim, but destined only for the bin.
Fortunately in Boston, there is a wonderful place where paintings that are unwanted and unloved have been saved; these artworks that are more a mistake than a Monet, or more of a disaster than a Degas, have been lovingly curated and put on display. What’s more, this gallery happens to live inside a tremendous microbrewery, affording you the twin pleasures of sipping well crafted drinks whilst soaking up some art that is too bad to be ignored. Welcome to the always marvelous Museum Of Bad Art!
We’re in Dorchester, a vibrant bustling neighbourhood a few miles south of downtown Boston, to visit one of the most unique but relatable art collections in the world, comprised of entirely quite bad art. The museum is housed in a Victorian former sheet metal plant, a relic of the neighbourhood’s industrial past, and now home to the Dorchester Brewing Company. We’re meeting with Louise Reilly Sacco who has been involved with the museum since it began in 1993, and for such a peculiar collection has the suitably quirky job title of ‘permanent interim acting executive director’.
“We have a huge collection of rejected material,” explains Sacco, “over nine hundred pieces where something went wrong.”
The museum began from that most humble of origins: trash night. Antique dealer Scott Wilson was driving slowly through Boston one evening when he spotted a painting left by the side of the road. The painting was not so much terrible as peculiar; a scowling elderly woman floating in the air above a field of flowers. But the gilt frame was in good shape, so Wilson snatched it up, his only thought to repurpose the frame and throw away the painting. But when Louise Reilly Sacco’s brother saw the garish portrait he exclaimed, “You can’t throw that way. It’s so bad it’s good!” The painting was given a name, “Lucy in the Field with Flowers”, and in a fine example of the saying “one man’s trash is another’s treasure”, the Museum Of Bad Art was born.
The collection steadily grew with more paintings ranging from the grotesque to the bewildering found in yard sales, thrift shops, or simply thrown away. As the museum gathered traction many pieces were donated. But standards at the MOBA are as high as they are at the MOMA, and not just any bad art can make it into the collection. But what exactly makes bad art good? “You just know it when you see it,” explains Sacco. “To be accepted the work must be created by someone attempting to make an artistic statement, but one that has gone horribly awry in either its concept or execution.” We’re standing in front of a particularly peculiar double portrait of Jackie O in the arms of George Washington, their faces somewhat gruesome but still instantly recognizable. “We know it was not painted from life because they lived two hundred years apart,” laughs Sacco.
A large part of the charm of the Museum is that it’s never cruel; despite the negative connotations of the museum’s name, there are no bad words to be said about either the art on show, or the hapless artists who created them. Rather than making fun of people’s questionable control of the paint brush or misrepresentations of human anatomy, it is more a gentle ribbing, and that inestimable quality of being able laugh at one’s self and not take one’s art too seriously.
“We definitely shy away from negative talk,” says Sacco, as we stand in front of a painting of lovely looking Hula girl that was found in a yard sale in Monticello, New York in 2012, that looks like it might have been inspired by Paul Gauguin, only instead of a traditional Tahitian sarong she’s wearing silk boxer shorts. “Indeed many of the unheard of artists who’ve discovered that their cast away works have been given a new home are delighted,” she explains, “They want an audience and see their work celebrated.”
It is these personal stories of bad art being re-connected with their creators that makes the MOBA so rewarding for Sacco and her co-workers. As with the first founding painting ‘Lucy in the Field with Flowers’, a Boston entertainment weekly ran a story about the museum featuring Lucy in all her peculiar glory, and it wasn’t long before the curators received a phone call from an astonished woman saying, “thats my Nana!”. The caller, Susan Lawlor contacted the MOBA to give provenance to the painting: after her grandmother had passed away in 1968, a local artist was commissioned to produce a portrait of the well loved family member to be given as a gift to her daughter, Lawlor’s aunt. MOBA takes up the story: “The day that the painting arrived wrapped in paper, everyone gathered around to watch as the paper was torn off……the thirteen year old Susan Lawlor bit her lip to keep from gasping at the oddly postured and formed body against a bizarre, surreal background.” But the aunt loved the slightly peculiar portrait of her mother and it hung in her house for twenty years until she too passed away. After the house and contents were sold, the portrait disappeared, only for a happy happenstance years later when it wound up discarded by the side of a Bostonian curb on trash night waiting to become the founding painting for the Museum Of Bad Art. Not so much portraits, as the MOBA puts it, but poor traits.
The museum started humbly as a fledgling idea amongst friends, to a spot in a community theatre in Somerville, before finding a permanent home at the Dorchester Brewing Company. “It is a perfect home,” explains Sacco, “it has a large wall space, perfect for an art gallery, and it is open evenings and weekends so more people can come to see the collection, and as we’re volunteer, there’s always staff on hand to manage the museum.”
The MOBA grew steadily to garner worldwide acclaim, with fifty more pieces on display at l’Aire publique d’Exmuro in la Place Royale in Quebec City, a setting redolent of the famous Parisian fine art salons, as well as hosting curator talks all reveling in the wonderful world of bad art. But about seventy artworks from the collection can be seen at the brewery, home to some of the finest craft beers in Boston.
The Dorchester Brewing Company was founded in 2016 by Matt Malloy, one time vice president at Zip Car who swapped corporate America for the far more delightful pleasures of opening his own brewery. Complete with a tap room, greenhouse style roof deck and in house BBQ, the brewery is an ideal setting for the bad art collection. “You mean I can walk around the art gallery with my beer?,” is a question Malloy gets asked a lot. “Sure! Just the way a museum should be!” is his cheerful reply. Our particular favourite on tap is the Parish Pilsner, a German style beer that would be perfectly at home in Bavarian bierhalle.
When the Museum Of Bad Art had to leave its spot in a Somerville Community Theatre it found a permanent home at the brewery. “For three years there was an obvious lack of art on our walls,” explains Malloy, “but karma is an amazing thing.” Malloy’s personal favourite of all the bad art is a remarkable portrait of one of Massachusetts’ best loved sons, John F Kennedy, who for some reason the artist thought would best be portrayed eating an ice cream cone. “We’re told as people that such and such fine art is the style of art you should like,” says Malloy, “Why would you look at art that’s been found in the trash? But it’s like people trying to be sincere but failing miserably….just like relationships!” the brewer laughs.
One of our favourite aspects of the Museum Of Bad Art are the captions, similar to those found in a traditional art gallery. “In Her Boudoir”, John Sepese, 20” x 15”, donated by the portrait subject, 1994 explains one, attached to a striking portrait of a flame haired beauty dressed only in a peignoir set against a pale blue background that matches her staring eyes. All well and good, but read on further and we find, “this portrait of a sultry beauty was the artist’s surprise gift of a portrait to his girlfriend. Apart from the oil pastel background, the entire work was completed using only the contents of the subject’s makeup bag. They are no longer keeping company.” The well intentioned but oddly rendered portrait was donated to the museum by the girlfriend back in 1994. “The captions really are half the charm,” laughs Malloy, surrounded in his brewery by other canvas catastrophes.
Practically every city in the world has at least one museum dedicated to displaying the best of fine art, but the Museum Of Bad Art is perhaps the only one dedicated to collecting and enjoying the worst. Wonderfully curated, the MOBA has become a home for the unwanted, the mistakes, the unloved and the forgotten, and what is more precious than that.
