(gentle piano music) - [Narrator] Coming up next, discover an American impressionist painting and compare it with the artist's sketchbook.

Examine a lithograph created as part of a collection designed to make artwork more affordable.

And later, we'll visit a place that remembers the earliest forms of wireless communication.

This is "Treasures Inside The Museum."

(bright music) (bright music continues) The Mystic Museum of Art is an institution that evolved from an organization originally created in 1913 by a local artist colony.

At the center of the movement was American impressionist painter Charles H. Davis.

the Massachusetts native, who studied extensively in Paris, eventually settled in Mystic and organized an art association.

- One of the benefits of being an institution that evolved out of an art colony is that we have examples of American impressionism in our exhibition.

We have abstract modern expressionism, we have sculpture, we have photography.

We have a little bit of everything from every single time period from the turn of the last century through to today.

And so, there's always something to see, whether that be our annual children's exhibition that has been happening since 1978, whether that is our annual juried exhibition that has a common theme that unites the artists who create work for it, or whether it be permanent collection pieces from ourself and also examples on loan from our historic artists, from the collections of private people, as well as other institutions.

(gentle piano music) (gentle piano music continues) - [Narrator] One constant through the years has been a focus on the cultural enrichment of the community.

Today, there are several galleries that make space for both permanent and changing exhibits, including a gallery that bears the name of the landscape artist who left a lasting legacy here.

- We are currently standing in the Charles Davis Gallery at the Mystic Museum of Art.

It is one of our historic galleries named for our founder.

And Charles Davis was a very renowned American landscape painter.

He was the painter of the canvas behind me, which is an excellent example of what was known as a Davis sky.

It was the particular signature that he was known for, big, expansive cloudscapes, and that was something that he started to do here in Mystic.

And one of our most recent gifts to the collection is the artist sketchbook in front of me.

There are five Charles Davis sketchbooks that are known to exist.

And Charles Davis was a very meticulous record keeper, so he did thumbnails of every single composition that he ever painted.

And they are so accurate that you can often identify a piece just from the thumbnail, so you can imagine our excitement when we were scanning the insides and saw number 975 here, which perfectly coincides with "The Clearing," which is part of our permanent collection.

(gentle piano music continues) What's interesting about it is that we know this piece as "The Clearing."

That is how it was purchased from the Macbeth Gallery down in New York City.

However, in the thumbnails, Charles Davis has listed as "A Clearing."

It is so important to have both an artist's sketchbook and the finished composition.

A sketchbook can give you such an insight into the thought process and the creativity of an artist, especially in the case of Charles Davis where you can see this one, he marks that it was sold.

Some of them, he'll say that, "Oh, I changed this composition."

"This one I painted over."

And so, it's helpful both in identifying a piece, like if we did not know what the title of this piece was but found the thumbnail for it.

And he even recorded these size of the canvases, which it can also help match which record might belong to which piece.

But it definitely does give you an insight that would've otherwise been lost in the life of someone who passed away in 1933 and there's no way to ask, what were you thinking?

What was the idea here?

(gentle piano music continues) - [Narrator] In addition to "The Clearing," the museum also has several other Davis works on display.

(gentle piano music continues) On a nearby wall, another painting stands out from the rest.

- I think anyone who walks into this exhibition will stop in their tracks to behold Francis Brackman.

(enigmatic piano music) She was an artist married to another artist named Robert Brackman who painted this portrait.

(enigmatic piano music continues) Here, we have Francis in front of a drawn curtain, and she's standing looking at us with a piercingly intelligent gaze.

She's wearing a full-length burgundy dress with vertical gold stripes and buttons all down the center of the dress.

But she has a handkerchief in her left hand and she's slightly lifting her dress with her other, and it looks as if she will leave the scene the moment the last brush stroke is placed.

(enigmatic piano music continues) In this gray box is a very carefully folded garment that you'll see is actually the dress that Francis is wearing.

(paper rustling) And when you get up close, you can really see the intricacy of these stripes going down the length of the dress, as well as these gorgeous buttons.

But what's very peculiar upon closer notice is that there's no lining or backing in the dress, which means that Francis only wore this for this portrait.

We also have a handkerchief enclosed.

That's most likely the one that she's holding in her left hand.

And of course, shoes complete the outfit.

And we have, with definite signs of wear, we have these gorgeous also burgundy-colored shoes.

But some liberties were taken, as you can tell, that this has a peep toe, and in the painting, Robert decided to make them close-toed shoes.

(enigmatic piano music continues) - [Narrator] The permanent collection here consists primarily of works by influential American artists, ranging from the early 20th century to the early 2000s.

(lively jazz music) (lively jazz music continues) A significant amount of space here is dominated by American impressionism, often capturing scenes from the Southern New England coast.

(lively jazz music continues) Additional galleries are dedicated to changing exhibits and spaces that showcase contemporary local artists.

(lively jazz music continues) The entire collection extends beyond what can be featured in the galleries, and a look behind the scenes reveals works and documentation that often offer insights into artists and their works.

(lively jazz music continues) - Right in front of us, this pairing of objects, we see a canceled etching and a plate by Y.E.

Soderberg who was an artist born in Chicago to Swedish immigrants.

Soderberg is probably best known for these boat scenes and racing scenes.

Artists who worked in printmaking very often wanted to control the number of prints in an addition, and so once they're done with printing, they often would actually make lines through the plate and print another copy to indicate, "We are done with this batch, and no images could be made after the fact."

This is a wonderful study of immediacy of the moment for this crew on this vessel.

We can see through Soderberg's incredible line work.

He's using contour and hatching to convey the clouds, but also the speed and the activity in the water.

And in the background beyond the ship, we're seeing a well-known landmark actually.

This is Montauk Point, the fourth oldest working lighthouse in the country.

And it's a scene that also appears in Soderberg's other works.

(slow classical music) - [Narrator] Another lithograph here is part of a collection originally designed to help make art available to a larger audience.

- This is one of about 200 lithographic exhibition catalogs that we have in our permanent collection, and it came out of post-World War II Paris.

There was a gallery owner named Aime Maeght and he really wanted to get art out into the public at a price point that would be affordable to them.

And if you couldn't afford a full painting by Matisse or a full piece by Calder, you could possibly afford one of the exhibition catalogs, which were designed in partnership with these artists and filled with lithographs.

And every single page is a lithographic print.

What was interesting about this particular exhibition, the name of it was "Sculpted a Cordes," which means string sculptures.

And you can see each one was made of metal and each one had a number of balls and strings, so almost like a guitar fretboard.

And the idea was that you could literally play these sculptures like a musical instrument, which is all very well and good if you can go in person to Paris to see the exhibition, but for those of whom could not, every single catalog you can see on the back cover here, there's a little envelope.

And inside of it was a floppy 45.

And so, Paul Bury, the artist, announced the name of each sculpture before playing it for the listener.

It's just like a really interesting time capsule of what this project was and what Aime Maeght, the owner of the gallery, was trying to accomplish.

- [Narrator] They were all printed on high quality paper, and the idea was that you could hang one of these lithographs on your wall at home.

Not all of the museum's treasures are always on display.

Here in the library, another example has emerged, where a painting's provenance is enhanced by additional archival materials.

- So, in addition to sketchbooks and other ephemera of that kind, we're very fortunate to have in our archives several notebooks that were kept by one artist, Gladys Edgerly Bates, about the masterpieces that her husband, Ken Bates, created over his life.

One of the benefits of these incredible resources is that it can help kind of fill in the story behind a lot of pieces in our permanent collection.

One example is this beautiful little painting done by Ken Bates.

It was undated, so prior to that, we were not clear on when it might have been made, but we do know it is a view of the family nursery.

Ken and Gladys had three sons.

And here depicted, I'm not sure which one is which, but one of the stuffed animals is Harlequin and the other is Columbine.

So, we did know the title of this piece.

It's written on the back of the stretcher, but it wasn't until we started really cataloging all of the written materials in the archives that we were able to kind of give a rough estimate on a date for this piece.

Because you can see in 1930, in the sixth annual exhibition here at what was then the Mystic Art Association, which conveniently dated July 13th to August 21st, a small painting called "Harlequin and Columbine" was exhibited here, and so that helped place it roughly in the time period, so we know that this was done sometime after 1930.

If you are fortunate enough to come across a resource like this, it is almost always never the artists themselves who did it.

So, to just kind of have this fall into our laps is an incredible, incredible thing.

(relaxing piano music) - [Narrator] Another way in which the Mystic Museum of Art puts a spotlight on art in the community takes place here.

- This is where all the magic happens.

- [Narrator] These studios are located within the museum and were built with a gift from a local artist who christened the space with the pouring of paint on the floor.

- It's a very special ceremonial pour made by an artist.

Her name was Katherine Tod Johnstone, and she is the person who's responsible for, you know, the existence of these beautiful studios here.

(relaxing piano music continues) This is a studio where you get messy and you get creative, and so lots of pours are gonna happen.

So, when she made the first pour, it was like, "This is what it's meant for.

Have fun."

And then there's also her initial that she ended with with the pour.

The cultural life of her community was very important for KTJ, and I feel like where we are right now, we have really touched what she wanted to make happen for this place.

- [Narrator] The studios host a variety of art education programs for children, teens, and adults.

One of the many ways this museum enriches the Mystic community.

(relaxing piano music continues) (bright music) (soft lively music) Long before the instant communication we enjoy with cell phones and satellites, there was another means (device ringing) of exchanging messages.

This is the Marconi-RCA Wireless Museum, a center dedicated to preserving the history of what was once the busiest ship-to-shore station in the United States.

- Guglielmo Marconi was experimenting with sending electromagnetic signals through space, and when he had achieved the ability to send anything, he began experimenting with sending Morse code over his radio apparatus, his crude radio apparatus.

And his genius was to marry (device beeping) the Morse code to radio and create what we call wireless telegraphy.

- [Narrator] Originally built as an early Marconi network for communicating business messages, the Chatham Station later transitioned to an RCA ship-to-shore facility.

- This facility facilitated world commerce, the ability for the world to do business.

- This was the facility from roughly the 1930s through the 1970s.

That was the primary conduit for communication to transatlantic travel.

- [Narrator] That communication took place using Morse code to send and receive messages, but those radio signals also served another purpose.

- This device behind me is a directional antenna.

It's formed by looping some wires over the wooden frames, creating an electrical coil.

And when rotated vertically in the vertical plane, provides a device to sense the strength of an electrical signal, radio signal coming from a ship.

The direction of antenna is on a pivoted base.

It can pivot at the bottom, rotate 360 degrees, manually rotated with a compass written on a rose at the bottom of it.

That allowed the operator to sense when the signal was strongest in his earphones and note the bearing that that signal was coming from.

The station went on the air for maritime service in 1921.

In the early 1920s, radio was still very new.

Most ships, if not all ships, were navigating by celestial navigation and dead reckoning.

And the ability to use radio to get a precise bearing to a point on land out of visual site was extremely useful.

It's fairly crude compared with today's equipment, but it worked.

It gave the operator here at Chatham Port the ability to give a direction to a ship, a compass bearing that allowed the ship to, along with getting bearings from several other stations, know exactly where it was.

- [Narrator] There's a diorama here to help visitors understand how big the Chatham Campus is, including the sophisticated antenna and housing for workers (switch clacks) (machine buzzes) and a large second-generation transmitter that was used here until the technology finally became obsolete.

- That's a transmitter that originally was used at the RCA facility on Long Island called Rocky Point.

That facility closed in 1975, and they brought a lot of those transmitters here to Chatham, and they replaced the original transmitters from 1948 with these transmitters.

They're more modern, up to date.

We had 17 of those transmitters in the building.

And they're on the air 24 hours a day, seven days a week from the late 1970s until the station closed in 1997.

And the importance is that's how ships received messages from the landside customer or their owner, charterer, whoever they're going to do business with.

Ships would get instructions on where to take their cargo.

If they had no destination yet, they receive weather information from us, orders, change of orders, crew requirements, fuel.

Anything you can think of that a ship requires to be able to function, that information was transmitted typically via Morse code to and from the ship.

- [Narrator] There are a number of exhibits here connecting both commercial and passenger shipping with wireless communications, including this telegraph transmitter device.

- Every night, we'd send the press out, international news, weather, sports, and business to ships at sea.

It's great ocean liners.

They would produce a newspaper on board the ship.

Well, the news for that newspaper came from our press broadcast, (typewriter clacking) and we'd have to type it out, produce this piece of tape, and that tape would be fed through a machine called a Creed, which is that device that was reading the holes in the tape to produce Morse code.

That allowed us to do that sort of like an automatic type of operation.

A radio operator didn't have to sit there and send it by hand.

(Creed beeping and whirring) - [Narrator] To help complete the story, the museum has assembled an example of what it would've looked like at the receiving end of one of these transmissions.

- This is a ship's console from the hospital ship, the SS Hope that was in service during the 1960s up until about 1974.

And this is a typical radio console that you would find on a ship in that time period, and this is what typical radio operators have to deal with onboard ships.

This is how they did their job.

(device humming and clicking) We put this on the air occasionally.

There is an event first weekend in June when we definitely are on the air with it.

It's a Museum Ships Weekend event for Amateur Radio, and you have museum ships around the world that are on the air.

We actually put this on the air for that event as well.

Today, we're all using cell phones and texting messages.

Well, this was what you had to do before all that came around.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] A ship's clock in the radio room is marked with certain times mandating radio silence reserved for emergency communications.

Every piece of equipment here has a story behind it, connecting us to a period from the last century.

(gentle music continues) For most of its operational years, this station has been primarily a privately run facility, except for one time in history when that suddenly changed.

- [Reporter 1] We interrupt this program to bring you a special news- - [Reporter 2] A Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor naturally would mean war.

- [Reporter 3] Yesterday, December 7th, 1921- - Chatham Radio has been here since 1921, serving ships at sea.

But in 1941, when the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbor on December 7th, we embarked on the one of the most critical missions we've ever had.

And this station was taken over then by the military.

First just censorship of transmissions that were going out, and then when they took over in June of '42, they took over the station completely and renamed it Station C, and changed its mission to one of intercepting encoded messages between new boats in the North Atlantic and German high command.

Beside me is an original desk from the war years.

These receivers were located to both levels of the facility.

The smaller ones typically up in the attic, which is a very narrow, very low in height.

And the taller ones down in here, and they were stationed along on a parallel basis throughout this entire floor here.

(calm acoustic guitar music) (calm acoustic guitar music continues) Each U-boat had its own frequency, so you were listening across a set of frequencies and they were constantly monitoring back and forth between them.

Once you heard one, you know, you then can continue to tweak the dial because then it would tell you how strong the signal is.

That's what this is telling you, is how strong that signal is, and you wanna key in on it.

You could hear these dots and dashes in the background without a problem once you tuned it so it gets the best possible signal.

That's what they're doing.

These are doing the same thing, but this is only open to show you what it was.

But basically, you've got the same dial and just something that tells you down here how the strength of that signal is.

An operator heard a signal from a particular U-boat using a particular transmission frequency.

They would then alert nine other stations up and down the East Coast that they had heard, that they would all tune to that frequency and find out location of the U-boat so they could either have the convoys avoid them by going away or if they were close enough and short to send out the sub-hunters out after them.

The desk itself and the receivers as well as the typewriters were all from that time period.

The mission of that was super secret, and people didn't talk about it in Chatham.

Matter of fact, most people in Chatham had no idea that this was going on here.

- [Narrator] The Navy presence in Chatham was only four years, but the strategic significance of what took place here cannot be understated.

There is a lot to see and learn at the Marconi-RCA Wireless Museum.

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