The Hillstrom Museum of Art presents two concurrent exhibitions on view through April 22: Now and Then: Works by Studio Art Faculty, Past and Present; and Reflections & Undercurrents: Ernest Roth and Printmaking in Venice, 1900-1940. The exhibitions are free and open to the public.
Reflections & Undercurrents features prints by artists who, following the lead of the great American aesthete and expatriate artist James Abbott MacNeill Whistler (1834-1903), explored in their art the picturesque aspects of Venice. The artists represented in the exhibit include German-born American painter and etcher Ernest Roth (1879-1964), who trained at the National Academy of Design and was one of the foremost etchers of the early twentieth century; John Taylor Arms (1887-1953), known for his technically-accomplished etchings that include astonishing levels of detail; Joseph Pennell (1860-1926), who, in addition to having made many prints in a variety of media also was a devoted follower and biographer of Whistler; and Whistler himself, who is represented both by a print in the exhibition proper as well as by the Museum’s addition of its own etching, an example of the 1879-1880 Long Venice, which depicts the familiar Venetian skyline from a distance.
Reflections & Undercurrents is based on the extensive collection of Eric Denker, Senior Lecturer at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., a long devoted fan of Venice whose publications include the 2003 exhibition catalogue Whistler and His Circle in Venice (The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington) and an etiquette guide to the city co-written with his friend Judith Martin, better known as “Miss Manners” (No Vulgar Hotel: The Desire and Pursuit of Venice, 2007). Denker will be on campus to present a public lecture on the exhibit and his collection on April 15 (3:30 p.m., Wallenberg Auditorium, Nobel Hall of Science), and will give a gallery talk the following evening in the exhibition space in the Museum. These events are free and open to the public. Reflections & Undercurrents is a traveling exhibit organized by The Trout Gallery, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Now and Then: Works by Studio Art Faculty, Past and Present is part of the Hillstrom Museum of Art’s official celebration of the Sesquicentennial of Gustavus Adolphus College. It features works in a variety of media by current Gustavus Adolphus College studio art faculty members, including Priscilla Briggs, Betsy R. Byers, Nicole Roberts Hoiland, Kristen Lowe, Lois Peterson, Dave Ryan, and Stanley J. Shetka. The exhibition also has works by a number of past Gustavus studio art faculty members, including Donald Palmgren, Donald Gregory, Paul Granlund, and Lorena Daeschner Hall, the College’s first art instructor, who taught at the College from 1938 to 1946. Hall was a student of the well-known Swedish-American artist Birger Sandzén (1871-1954) at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas, and she was the wife of George Hall, who taught in the religion department at Gustavus.
Now and Then is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue that includes an essay reminiscing about the history of the art department at Gustavus, written by Professor Emeritus Bruce A. McClain, whose own work is represented in the exhibit. McClain retired in 2011 after forty-five years of teaching at the College, and he recounts how when he started at the College in 1965, the faculty consisted solely of Donald Gregory (who took over in 1946 after Lorena Daeschner Hall left), and how the department slowly grew into its current form.
The Hillstrom Museum of Art is open weekdays from 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. on weekends except for April 6-8. The museum is located in Jackson Student Center on the Gustavus Adolphus College campus and is open to the public. Admission is free.
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