Upcoming

Artists and Ancestors: Masterworks of Chinese Classical Painting and Ancient Ritual Bronzes

September 12–December 7, 2008

This exhibition brings together two of the most revered traditions in Chinese art: paintings of nature, primarily landscape and flora, and bronze vessels and musical instruments used in antiquity to venerate the ancestors. Included in the exhibition are outstanding works by some of the most famous artists of the Yuan (1279–1368) and Ming (1368–1644) dynasties, as well as remarkable bronze ritual vessels and bells cast between the thirteenth and fifth centuries B.C.E.

Art Now: Doug and Mike Starn

January 6–April 19, 2009

A newly acquired, iconic image of a tree and enlarged photomicrographs of snowflakes are featured in this installation of works by the Starn brothers, identical twins whose singular aesthetic practice demonstrates a passionate interest in history and technological exploration.

Confronting History: Contemporary Artists Envision the Past

February 13–April 19

Kara Walker’s Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated), a recent gift to the Museum, provides a focus for understanding contemporary artists’ determination to probe the historical record.

Making Sense of Thomas Kinkade

May–August, 2009

It is easy to dismiss the work of contemporary landscape painter Thomas Kinkade as kitsch and brush aside his popularity as only a successful marketing phenomenon. But to do so ignores his sincere zeal and the deep resonance his work holds for many people. This exhibition, guest-curated by Michael Clapper, associate professor of art history at Franklin and Marshall College, considers Kinkade in the context of work that ranges from Norman Rockwell to Komar and Melamid.

Pastoral Vermont: The Paintings and Etchings of Luigi Lucioni

May–August, 2009

In a career that spanned more than sixty years, the Italian-born artist Luigi Lucioni (1900–1988) devoted much of his attention to developing and refining a personal vision of the Vermont landscape. This exhibition of more than fifty oil paintings, etchings, and watercolors considers the leitmotifs of his vision: rolling hills, verdant valleys, majestic trees, and aging barns along with his painstaking devotion to still-life subjects and meticulously painted portraits.