After 34 years, the Artists Association of Nantucket (AAN) is returning to the Thomas Macy Warehouse at 12 Straight Wharf for a season of spectacular gallery events. “We’re coming back home,” says AAN’s Executive Director, Courtney Bridges.

AAN showed its works in the iconic brick building from the organization’s inception in 1945 through 1988. Now, after a top-story restoration that has made the place clean and bright with white-beamed ceilings, wonderful brick walls and historically restored floors, AAN is renting the place from the Nantucket Historical Association. In its earliest days back in the 1800s, the edifice had been a chandlery and warehouse.

The new area will more than double AAN’s capacity for exhibiting paintings, taking it from about 130 feet of wall space to almost 300 feet. Each show will feature large-size art that wouldn’t be able to fit at AAN’s gallery at 19 Washington Street. The organization is calling the newly revived space the Big Gallery.

Some paintings will be as wide as nine feet. “Our artists asked us if we could find another space to show more of their larger works,” says AAN Artistic Director Bobby Frazier, “and that’s what we’ll basically be exhibiting.” The organization’s storefront gallery on Washington Street, while lovely and which will continue to remain open, can usually accommodate only three or four good-size paintings among 75 to 150 smaller ones, depending on the show.

“I am looking forward to decorators coming in to see some big work because with the new building boom, there are a lot of white walls on Nantucket and a need for larger paintings,” Frazier comments. “We have regular contact with some interior decorators who are looking for singular works of reasonable size.”

Five shows, running from June 3rd through December 20th, will exhibit paintings and other art for sale, and the Big Gallery will be open seven days a week during the high season. Opening parties for each show, free to the public with complimentary food and drink, will occur on the first Friday of the month through the summer and a couple of fall months: June 3, July 1, August 5 and so on. The five shows:

June 3–June 27: Coastal Impressions.

July 1–August 1: MEGA—Modern Epic Gigantic Artworks, exclusively.

August 5–September 12: “Planet Nantucket: Photography of the Island.”



September 16–November 13: “Master Artists/ Masterworks” by the painters John Lochtefeld, Joan Albaugh, Sherre Wilson Liljegren, David Lazarus and Julija Mostykanova Feeney.

November 18–December 20: Holiday Expo. “This will have a lot more ceramics and things of smaller size,” Frazier says, “not just 2-D wall art.”

For more information, see nantucketarts.org.