NEW BRITAIN, CT.-The New Britain Museum of American Art presents Innocence, on view through September 18, 2005. Childhood innocence and its loss as expressed in American painting, sculpture, prints, and photography is the theme of Innocence, an exhibition on view at the NBMAA through Sept. 18, 2005.

Innocence concentrates on depictions of babies, children, and teenagers at work and play in the 19th-, 20th-, and 21st- centuries in social, domestic, and work settings and traces the development of youth from infancy to young adulthood. This exhibition illustrates how youngsters react to the world surrounding them and how they confront their loss of innocence as they discover the uncertainties of early adulthood.

Innocence represents a wide variety of works of art ranging from Mary Cassatt’s tender, intimate portraits of mothers and children to the provocative, sensual photographs of Sally Mann and Jock Sturges. Innocence also contrasts Winslow Homer’s bucolic, peaceful scenes of play, courtship, and leisure with Helen Levitt’s and Lewis Hine’s personal images of working-class children. Also represented in the exhibition are 66 works by such renowned artists as George Inness, John Singleton Copley, and Willard Metcalf.

The exhibition is curated by Daniel Fulco, assistant to NBMAA Director Douglas Hyland, and includes works from private collections, the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, Hollis Taggart Galleries of New York, Laurence Miller Gallery of New York, the Alpha Gallery of Boston, as well as the NBMAA’s permanent collection.