Image: Kelsy Patnaude, In Sunset, Storm and Silence, 2025, oil on canvas
The Newport Art Museum is presenting ‘Unfurling: Small Work by the 2027 Art Cup Artists,’ an exhibition previewing the contemporary artists whose imagery will be printed on the sails of a fleet of Shields sailboats in a planned 2027 regatta. The exhibition is on view from June 4 through December 31, 2026, at Griswold House in Newport, Rhode Island.
‘Unfurling’ brings together small works by seven of the artists selected for the Art Cup: Katherine Bradford, Bob Dilworth, Emil Lukas, Tomokazu Matsuyama, Odili Donald Odita, Kelsy Patnaude and Coral Woodbury. The presentation is intended to offer a view into each artist’s practice before the larger-scale, site-specific works are produced for the sails. For the Art Cup, each artist will create a new work conceived specifically for the project.
The 2027 Art Cup is being organized in collaboration with the Newport Art Museum, Sail Newport and Shields Fleet 9. In summer 2027, the artists’ imagery is scheduled to appear on the sails of more than a dozen Shields boats. The sails will be hoisted for a special, one-off regatta held just offshore of Fort Adams State Park, with the boats moving through Newport Harbor and the East Passage of Narragansett Bay.
The museum describes the planned event as part regatta and part moving exhibition. Rather than remaining fixed on gallery walls, the works will be carried across the water as the boats compete for position and then move together through the racecourse. Their changing distance, speed and alignment will continually alter how the images are seen.
The project connects the museum’s exhibition program with Newport’s longstanding sailing culture. Shields-class boats are 30-foot international one-design keelboats designed by naval architect Olin Stephens and first introduced in 1962. They were named for sailor Cornelius Shields and continue to be raced in Newport and sailing communities across the United States. Each boat is crewed by teams of four to five sailors.
Sail Newport, the museum’s collaborator, was founded in 1983 with a mission to provide public access to sailing through instruction, race development and the hosting of local, national and international sailing events. The organization says that more than 10,000 people engage with its programs each year across different ages and abilities. The exhibition’s collaboration with Sail Newport and Shields Fleet 9 places the artists’ work within that active maritime setting rather than treating the sails solely as exhibition surfaces.
The Newport Art Museum, founded in 1912, maintains a collection of approximately 3,000 works spanning paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photography, decorative arts, textiles, installation and new media. ‘Unfurling’ extends that institutional focus into a public event whose final presentation will take place on the water in 2027. The preview remains on view at Griswold House through December 31, 2026.
