Chabot Fine Art Gallery is proud is announce the Green & Red Exhibition in honor of two great feast days that influenced Historic Federal Hill, St. Patrick and St. Joseph. The collection in this exhibition will pay tribute to these great immigrants who came with their religious beliefs and devotions to St. Patrick and St. Joseph with the predominant colors of green or red or both found in original paintings, sculpture and jewelry.
March 8 – April 2 2011
Opening Reception Gallery Night March 17th – St. Patrick’s Feast Day Day 5-9PM
Special Event Saturday March 19th St. Joseph’s Feast Day 10AM – 4PM
The first half of the 19th century Federal Hill was the home of Providence’s new working class. These people were painters, joiners, carpenters, manufacturers, coopers, blacksmiths, laborers, cobblers, teamsters, longshoremen, and mariners, among various other professions. Manufacturing created new sources of wealth and work, which eventually played a key role in the historical development of Federal Hill. For the industrialists, the first great wave of immigrants, primarily from Ireland, served to accommodate their need for labor as well.
In the early 1900s, the Federal Hill area was the destination of a second great wave of immigrants, nearly 60 years after the Irish had arrived in the neighborhood. The area soon became the center of one of the most densely populated and largest Italian settlements in the nation making it the city’s informal Little Italy. Atwells Avenue became the center of business and culture for the city’s Italian population and widely known as Rhode Island’s own “Little Italy.”