On View:
PETER WAITE: SOCIAL MEMORY, PAINTINGS 1987–2023
The Wadsworth
Hartford, Connecticut
thewadsworth.org
through March 15, 2026
The Wadsworth (until recently called the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art) is celebrating the Connecticut-based artist Peter Waite (b. 1950) with his first solo exhibition at a museum.
On view are 70 paintings spanning nearly four decades, selected and organized by curator Laura Leonard and accompanied by a handsome catalogue.
Painting in acrylics on large PVC panels, Waite creates scenes that explore public spaces in New England and Europe where history, memory, and perception meet. These are places we pass through daily but rarely stop to examine — such as bridges, train stations, and passageways — which he shows emptied of their usual crowds, conjuring a sense of absence. To make these scenes, Waite consults his own photographs, sketches from the field, and personal memory.
