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  Let's Play!: Sports and Games in Art and Culture

  Macey Cohen, Hagen Krebs, Paul Pelham, Kate Sallee, Devyn Wesolowski, and Yan Sun

  Regardless of differences across individual lives, cultures, and traditions, one of humanity’s most enduring and joyful acts is that of play. This commonality, however, does not mean that play should be seen as simply a trivial matter. Play is also not merely a matter of winning or losing, but a reflection of the moral and cultural values of society. The exhibition Let’s Play: Sports and Games in Art and Culture features eleven works of art, collected from disparate cultures, time periods, and countries, to demonstrate the productive forces of play in its many iterations. What is central to every work is the dynamism and creativity inspired by and achieved through the unfolding of play. Like art, play focuses on processes of moving or making, is open to chance, and offers a sense of pleasure to its viewers. Art and play can be understood as a kind of universal language which invariably communicates and makes possible the collective participation in cultural meaning and aesthetic expression. Despite the many socio-cultural differences between the works in this catalogue, each one shares that transcendent quality of play appealing to the most basic human desire: to find value in friendship, competition, art, and performance. Sports and games are easily accessible acts to realize joy and kinship.

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  Confuse the Issues: Art, Text, and Identity

  Shannon Egan

  Confuse the Issues: Art, Text, and Identity features text-based works by prominent contemporary artists of color who demonstrate the power of language. Not only are the words central to the compositions of each photograph, sculpture, and print, but they also provide expressions of identity, reflections on history, and calls to action. In reading both the linguistic and aesthetic narratives in the works on display, a viewer encounters stories that are at once critical and inclusive, verbal and visual, personal and political. The artists use assertive poetry, dynamic admonitions, and a clear naming of victims of police violence to question white privilege and incite change. The exchange of words in this exhibition may confuse the issues; nevertheless, the art speaks and demands that voices are heard.

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  ART/WORK: Labor, Identity, and Society

  Zirui Feng, Elinor G. Gass, Ran Li, Lauren C. McVeigh, Matthew S. Montes, Lin Zhu, and Yan Sun

  Artists, perhaps to emphasize their own dedication to the intellectual and manual skills required for making art, have long been drawn to the theme of labor, both in their depictions of workers and scenes of making. In the late seventeenth century, Dutch paintings frequently portrayed earnest and diligent artisans performing trades at shops or on the streets. Later, rapid economic, social and political changes throughout Europe in the mid-nineteenth century led to a more radical approach to realist representations of labor. This exhibition ART/WORK: Labor, Identity, and Society considers these art-historical precedents to explore the issues of labor in art. More specifically, the student curators investigate the dynamic interplay between labor, gender, and race in the process of industrialization and social transition across various cultures in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. ART/WORK highlights thirteen works of art from Gettysburg College’s Fine Art Collection and Special Collections. Posters, prints, and photographs in this exhibition are not simply documents of people and tasks performed within their own particular histories and societies, but are presented as works of art by a diverse group of accomplished makers. [excerpt]

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  Imprints of Life: Rubbings from Carved Stones of the Han Dynasty

  Elinor G. Gass and Yan Sun

  Imprints of Life: Rubbings from Carved Stones of the Han Dynasty explores the connectivity between an individual’s character and the historical narratives celebrated in Han society; on display in Schmucker Art Gallery are rubbings taken from carvings on architectural components of burial chambers and above ground shrines in the western Shandong Province. These rubbings, selected from Gettysburg College’s Special Collections and College Archives, date from approximately the 1st to 2nd century and illustrate the values of Confucianism and Daoism, the two prevalent philosophies embraced at the time. Confucianism establishes rules of morality and piety, while Daoism focuses on the balance with nature and the search for immortality, as demonstrated by celebrated deities.

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  Decameron Row, In Memoriam

  Imaginary Places

  In Boccaccio’s 14th-century work Decameron, a group of friends avert the loneliness of a quarantine during the Black Death by squatting together in an abandoned villa outside of Florence and telling each other stories: 10 people x 10 days = 100 tales. Their stories give them solace (and a bit of bawdy fun).

  When the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, we were inspired by Boccaccio’s belief that sharing stories is a salve for isolation, but we were a group of friends separated from one another by space and time. We could not squat together in a Florentine villa like Boccaccio’s characters, but we did find that looking in on each other’s lives through the contemporary technologies of our screens was essential for our mental health. So in March of 2020, we started sending requests to people we missed to send us short, intimate video postcards of their experiences in lockdown. We loved the videos that arrived, and we would play them over and over.

  We began wondering, what could a Decameron look like in the 21st century? How could we “squat” together with people from all over the world in one neighborhood, in which everyone could share their stories? We imagined an idiosyncratic, virtual place, where the curious could click on a window and peek into each others’ lives, much like we had already been doing with one another. We began reaching out further afield, inviting artists from around the world to participate in our experiment. We were deliberate about diversity and geographic variety, but we chose to be guided more by intuition, the generosity of others, and happy accidents than by curatorial intention.

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  From the Yellow Springs to the Land of Immortality

  Sam Arkin, Georgia E. Benz, Allie N. Beronilla, Hailey L. Dedrick, Sophia Gravenstein, Alyssa G. Gubernick, Elizabeth C. Hobbs, Jennifer R. Johnson, Emily Lashendock, Georgia P. Morgan, Amanda J. Oross, Deirdre Sullivan, Margaret G. Sullivan, Hannah C. Turner, Lyndsey J. Winick, and Yan Sun

  The Yellow Springs is a vivid metaphorical reference to the final destination of a mortal being and the dwelling place of a departed one in ancient China. In the writings of philosophers, historians, and poets during the long period of Chinese history, the Yellow Springs is not only considered as an underground physical locus where a grave is situated, but also an emotionally charged space invoke grieving, longing, and memory for the departed loved ones. The subterranean dwelling at the Yellow Springs is both a destination for a departed mortal being and an intermediary place to an ideal and imaginative realm, the land of immortality where the soul would enjoy eternity. From the Yellow Springs to the Land of Immortality is an exhibition that highlights sixteen carefully selected artworks from Gettysburg College’s Special Collections; each object embodies the perceptions and ritual practices of the rich funerary culture in the historical period in China, ranging from the late second millennium BCE to the beginning of the early twentieth century. These artifacts represent various artistic traditions and fabrication techniques — including jade carving, bronze casting, glazed pottery making — and most importantly, offer a glimpse of how art and artifacts are employed as a means to connect the living with the soul of the departed one in the Yellow Springs. Archaeo- logical discoveries in the past four decades in China have provided rich information that helps contextualize the sixteen artworks, as well as intimate knowledge about how the objects might “perform” in the life and afterlife of the individuals in the past.

  The practice of burying goods alongside departed loved ones has had a long tradition in China. The artworks included in this exhibition catalogue, encompassing the major dynasties in Chinese history, epitomize such a practice from a historical point of view. The bronze jue of the Shang dynasty (mid-16th c.-1046 BCE), and the miniature bell, a replica of yong bronze bell of the Zhou dynasty (1045-256 BCE), are not only ceremonial paraphernalia used by elites in ancestral sacrifices during the Bronze Age, but also material manifestations of ritual and music, the very foundations of ancient Chinese civilization. Comparable examples found in Bronze Age tombs illustrate the idea to connect the deceased, often the owner of these ritual objects, to the ancestors in the netherworld as they themselves were transitioned into the role of ancestors through a series of funerary ceremonies. [excerpt]

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  Across the West and Toward the North: Norwegian and American Landscape Photography

  Shannon Egan and Marthe Tolnes Fjellestad

  Across the West and Toward the North: Norwegian and American Landscape Photography examines images from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a historical moment when once remote wildernesses were first surveyed, catalogued, photographed, and developed on both sides of the Atlantic. The exhibition demonstrates how photographers in the two countries provided new ways of seeing the effects of mapping and exploration: infrastructure changes, the exploitation of natural resources, and the influx of tourism. As tourists and immigrants entered “new” lands—seemingly unsettled areas that had long been inhabited and utilized by Indigenous people in both countries—they “discovered” beautifully remote landscapes across the west and toward the north. [excerpt]

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  Martin Puryear: 40 Years Since Sentinel

  Merlyn I. Maldonado Lopez and Shannon Egan

  Artist Martin Puryear’s commitment to seeing objects as connected to history and culture resonates with a moment when Gettysburg College reflected on the significance of its own historical place and time. As the College approached the sesquicentennial anniversary of its founding, it decided to mark the occasion not with a ball or parade, but with “an intelligent artifact,” a permanent marker that both recognizes its maker and offers its own history. In 1980, Associate Dean of the College Robert Nordvall suggested to President Charles Glassick that they ought to commission a monumental sculpture on campus. Glassick then created the Ad Hoc Sculpture Committee and appointed Nordvall, who became chairman of the committee, Biology Professor A. Ralph Cavaliere, Art Professor and sculptor Alan Paulson, Trustee Samuel A. Schreckengaust, and, at Professor Paulson’s recommendation, student Nicholas Micros, class of 1982. [excerpt]

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  Sandy Winters: Creation and Destruction

  Shannon Egan

  The title of Sandy Winters’s exhibition is a bit of a misnomer, as the process that perhaps best describes the artist’s practice is creation and re-creation. The evolution of her long and active career reveals a sensitive awareness of connectivity and progeny. In other words, she allows for her paintings, prints, drawings, and sculpture to give birth in a way to subsequent works. She continually recognizes the pregnant possibilities in a singular form and the opportunities for each to exist in new, unique environments. Aspects of Winters’s oeuvre seem to have a generative function, and these repetitive motifs exist as a kind of genetic material.

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  Mexico and the People: Revolutionary Printmaking and the Taller De Gráfica Popular

  Carolyn Hauk and Joy Zanghi

  During its most turbulent and formative years of the twentieth century, Mexico witnessed decades of political frustration, a major revolution, and two World Wars. By the late 1900s, it emerged as a modernized nation, thrust into an ever-growing global sphere. The revolutionary voices of Mexico’s people that echoed through time took root in the arts and emerged as a collective force to bring about a new self-awareness and change for their nation. Mexico’s most distinguished artists set out to challenge an overpowered government, propagate social-political advancement, and reimagine a stronger, unified national identity. Following in the footsteps of political printmaker José Guadalupe Posada and the work of the Stridentist Movement, artists Leopoldo Méndez and Pablo O’Higgins were among the founders who established two major art collectives in the 1930s: Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (LEAR) and El Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP). In 1946, artists of the TGP created twelve lithographs published in an album entitled Mexican People for the Associated American Artists (AAA) gallery in New York City. After decades of social strife, this publication represents the continuation of the TGP’s political agenda in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution. As the collective’s work gained the recognition of foreign art circles, American art markets sought imagery of an idealized post-revolutionary Mexico. In between American ideas of its southern neighbor and the politics of the TGP, the album Mexican People presents a modernized Mexican identity represented by the labors of its workers. [excerpt]

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  Luxurious Surfaces: Chinese Decorative Arts from the 15th to the Early 20th Century

  William T. Caterham, Ashley E. M. Jeffords, Merlyn I. Maldonado Lopez, Sarah Paul, James H. Raphaelson, Megan N. Reimer, Shannon R. Zeltmann, Tianrun Zhao, and Yan Sun

  Luxurious Surfaces: Chinese Decorative Arts from the Fifteenth to the Early Twentieth Century is a highly anticipated exhibition that highlights student learning in the art history program. The curators, William Caterham ’20, Ashley Jeffords ’20, Merlyn Maldonado Lopez ’22, Sarah Paul ’22, James Raphaelson ’21, Megan Reimer ’22, Shannon Zeltmann ’21 and Tianrun Zhao ’20, are students enrolled in the Art History Method class in Fall 2019. The exhibition examines the quintessential characteristics and the meaning of Chinese decorative arts embedded in the luxurious surfaces of sixteen carefully selected works from Gettysburg College’s Asian Art Collection.

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  Zoë Charlton: The Domestic

  Shannon Egan

  Zoë Charlton’s grandmother, Everlena Bates, was a domestic worker in Northern Florida. Charlton pays homage not only to her grandmother in her recent body of work, but also to the long history of African-American women’s labor in white families’ homes throughout the South. Although her grandmother did not speak often or directly about the conditions of her employment, Charlton nonetheless is keenly aware of the injustices, possible abuses, and intimate labor endured by black maids, housekeepers, and nannies who worked endlessly long hours and with little pay through the twentieth century. The collages and large-scale installation in Charlton’s exhibition The Domestic at Schmucker Art Gallery examine the notions of caretaking across racial and class lines, the fragility and failings of a home, and the complications of gender and sexuality in relation to this intensely bodily domestic work.

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  Artful Nature and the Legacy of Maria Sibylla Merian

  Emily N. Roush, Shannon R. Zeltmann, Felicia M. Else, Kay Etheridge, and Shannon Egan

  The exhibition Artful Nature and the Legacy of Maria Sibylla Merian celebrates the skills and influences of a remarkable woman from seventeenth-century Europe. Curated by Emily Roush ’21 and Shannon Zeltmann ’21 with the guidance of Professors Kay Etheridge (Biology) and Felicia Else (Art History), Emily and Shannon selected the prints, organized them into categories, and carried out research on them, much of which was relatively obscure and would have been challenging even for graduate students.

  Maria Sibylla Merian lived and worked in a time of vibrant intersections of art and science in Europe. Her images of insects and plants are at the center of the exhibition, but it is important to understand how her work was shaped by this period. What may at first glance appear to be “pretty” pictures of flowers and bugs were actually revolutionary compositions that changed how nature was portrayed.

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  The City: Art and the Urban Environment

  Angelique J. Acevedo, Sidney N. Caccioppoli, Abigail A. Coakley, Chris J. Condon, Alyssa DiMaria, Carolyn Hauk, Lucas Kiesel, Noa Leibson, Erin E. O'Brien, Elise A. Quick, Sara E. Rinehart, Emily N. Roush, and Shannon Egan

  The City: Art and the Urban Environment is the fifth annual exhibition curated by students enrolled in the Art History Methods class. This exhibition draws on the students’ newly developed expertise in art-historical methodologies and provides an opportunity for sustained research and an engaged curatorial experience. Working with a selection of paintings, prints, and photographs, students Angelique Acevedo ’19, Sidney Caccioppoli ’21, Abigail Coakley ’20, Chris Condon ’18, Alyssa DiMaria ’19, Carolyn Hauk ’21, Lucas Kiesel ’20, Noa Leibson ’20, Erin O’Brien ’19, Elise Quick ’21, Sara Rinehart ’19, and Emily Roush ’21 carefully consider depictions of the urban environment in relation to significant social, economic, artistic, and aesthetic developments. [excerpt]

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  The Plains of Mars, European War Prints, 1500-1825

  Melissa Casale, Bailey R. Harper, Felicia M. Else, and Shannon Egan

  Over fifty original prints by renowned artists from the sixteenth through the early nineteenth century, including Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach, Théodore Géricault, and Francisco de Goya, among many others, are featured inThe Plains of Mars: European War Prints, 1500-1825. On loan from the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the works of art included in this exhibition examine the topics of war and peace, propaganda, heroism, brutal conflicts, and the harrowing aftermath of battle. Spanning from the Renaissance to the Romantic periods and encompassing a wide geographic scope including Italy, Germany, France, Spain, the Low Countries, England, and North America, the prints depict triumphant Renaissance soldiers, devastating scenes of violence, and satirical caricatures of political figures. Also on display is Goya’s compelling “Disasters of War” series, completed in response to the brutality of the Spanish War of Independence. Goya’s prints serve as a powerful testament to the horrors faced by both soldiers and civilians. Under the direction of Professor Felicia Else and Shannon Egan, Melissa Casale ‘19 and Bailey Harper ‘19 have researched and written didactic labels, catalogue essays, and created an interactive digital interface to complement the exhibition. Together, Melissa and Bailey will lead public tours of the exhibition. A Gallery Talk by Prof. Peter Carmichael will draw connections between the depictions of warfare on view in the Gallery with representations of the American Civil War. James Clifton, Director of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will be delivering a lecture in conjunction with the exhibition. Dr. Clifton, who also serves as curator of Renaissance and Baroque painting at MFAH, curated the exhibition in its first iteration and wrote the exhibition catalogue (published by Yale University Press). Dr. Clifton’s lecture not only will provide an overview of the exhibition, but also will focus on the concept of “mediated war.” A full-color catalogue with images and essays by Bailey Harper ’19 and Melissa Casale ’19, under the supervision of Profs. Felicia Else and Shannon Egan, is planned to accompany the exhibition.

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  Flora and Fauna in East Asian Art

  Samantha B. Frisoli, Daniella M. Snyder, Gabriella A. Bucci, Melissa R. Casale, Keira B. Koch, and Paige L. Deschapelles

  Flora and Fauna in East Asian Art is the fourth annual exhibition curated by students enrolled in the Art History Methods course. This exhibition highlights the academic achievements of six student curators: Samantha Frisoli ’18, Daniella Snyder ’18, Gabriella Bucci ’19, Melissa Casale ’19, Keira Koch ’19, and Paige Deschapelles ’20. The selection of artworks in this exhibition considers how East Asian artists portrayed similar subjects of flora and fauna in different media including painting, prints, embroidery, jade, and porcelain. This exhibition intends to reveal the hidden meanings behind various representations of flora and fauna in East Asian art by examining the iconography, cultural context, aesthetic and function of each object.

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  Face to Face, Carl Beam and Andy Warhol

  Keira B. Koch

  Keira Koch ’19 examines representations of indigenous cultures in prints and photographs by American artist Andy Warhol and First Nations artist Carl Beam. In this comparative study, Koch considers the topic of appropriation and re-appropriation of Native imagery. Warhol, as a non-Indigenous artist, is using this imagery to highlight the dominant narrative of the American West. Beam, however, incorporates photographs of Native subjects and traditional narratives by re-appropriating those images to tell a distinctly Native narrative. This exhibition invites discussion about the role of contemporary indigenous artists and how indigenous identities are expressed in contemporary art. This exhibition intersects with the issues and methodologies studied in Koch’s individualized major titled “Indigenous Cultures, History and Identity.” In addition to studying aboriginal arts and indigenous communities in Australia during her Junior year, Koch serves as the Co-President of Students for Indigenous Awareness at Gettysburg College.

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  Coronal Plane: Cristin Millett

  Grace Linden and Shannon Egan

  Coronal Plane is the culmination of Millett’s research on the anatomical theater at the University of Padua built in 1594, the oldest surviving anatomy theater in the world. The installation allows viewers to walk into and through a space that evokes physical, emotional, and psychological reactions similar to those experienced in the historic anatomy theater in Padua by audiences of the past. Illustrations depicted on red “windows” in Millett’s work are appropriated from De Formato Foetu, a text written by Girolamo Fabrizi d’Acquapendente (Hieronymus Fabricius), the Chair of Anatomy at the University of Padua. It was under his leadership that the anatomy theater of 1594 was built. Millett’s allusions to Catholic confessionals and kneeling benches in the installation invite the viewer to question the contradictory stance between surgeries performed for medical education and dissections completed in order to disperse sacred remains for widespread worship. Particular references to sexuality and sexual differences are also central to Millett’s investigation of historical medical practices and philosophies. The University of Padua was one of the first institutions that dissected both male and female cadavers.

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  Leonard Baskin: Imaginary Artists

  Kathya M. Lopez and Erica M. Schaumberg

  Leonard Baskin (1922-2000) was an American sculptor, illustrator, and printmaker. He is perhaps best known as a figurative sculptor and a creator of monumental woodcuts. The Gehenna Press, Baskin’s private press, operated for over 50 years (1942-2000) and produced more than 100 volumes of fine art books. His most prominent public commissions include sculpture for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial and the Woodrow Wilson Memorial, both in Washington D.C., and the Holocaust Memorial in Ann Arbor, MI. Baskin received numerous honors, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Gold Medal of the National Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Jewish Cultural Achievement Award. He had many retrospective exhibitions, including those at the Smithsonian, the Albertina, and the Library of Congress. His work is in major private and public institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the British Museum, and the Vatican Museums.

  Imaginary Artists, a collection of 25 watercolor sketches, was completed in 1976 as a gift for Baskin’s friend, the distinguished Philadelphia lawyer Edwin Rome, and his wife, Rita. In this series Baskin skillfully acknowledges the Western art historical canon through irreverent references to traditional compositions and famous artists. His group of imaginary—or one can imagine uncredited—artists were often figured as the assistants, students, or rivals to the most noted painters of the centuries and include “Smedley Webb, little-known student of T. Eakins” and “Antonin du Colines, assistant to Poussin.” Through these representations, Baskin mirrors his earlier 1963 series Portraits of Artists, but takes up the subject, history, and medium of painting with humor and a serious commitment to figuration.

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  Posada: José Guadalupe Posada and the Mexican Penny Press

  Schmucker Art Gallery

  José Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913) was one of Mexico’s most influential political printmakers and cartoonists. Posada produced an extensive body of imagery, from illustrations for children’s games to sensationalistic news stories. He is best known, however, for his popular and satirical representations of calaveras (skeletons) in lively guises, who have become associated with the Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations. Posada’s prints shaped generations of Mexican artists including the muralists Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. This exhibition features a range of prints and print media including calaveras, chapbooks, political prints, devotional images, and representations of natural disasters and popular events. The works for this exhibition are organized by Dickinson College’s Trout Gallery and are on loan from David Sellers.

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  Recent Acquisitions, 2007-2017: Selections from the Gettysburg College Fine Arts Collection

  Schmucker Art Gallery

  This exhibition reflects the breadth of Gettysburg College’s significant art collection and acknowledges the generosity of its donors. Major acquisitions have been made possible by The Michael J. Birkner '72 and Robin Wagner Art and Photography Acquisition Fund, which was established in 2013 to enhance the Gettysburg College curriculum, to offer curatorial opportunities for students, and to provide first-hand access to significant works of art.

  Purchases made possible by this endowment include works by prominent, internationally renowned artists Kara Walker, Wafaa Bilal, John Biggers, and Michael Scoggins. Other recent donations include important works by Andy Warhol, Glenn Ligon, Leonard Baskin, Raphael Soyer, Marion Greenwood, William Clutz, William Mason Brown, Sally Gall, and Jules Cheret’s Les Maîtres de l'Affiche lithographs. The Fine Arts Collection at Gettysburg College is comprised of over 500 museum-quality works, in addition to over 2000 Asian art objects that are featured routinely in Schmucker Art Gallery exhibitions and studied in Gettysburg College courses. The College has acquired over 200 fine art works in the past ten years, and this exhibition marks the first occasion to celebrate and view the scope of the collection. Some of the objects have been featured in recent exhibitions, while others, including large-scale color silkscreens by Andy Warhol and a rare print by MacArthur “Genius” Award recipient Carrie Mae Weems, have not yet been exhibited.

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  Wonders of Nature and Artifice

  Schmucker Art Gallery

  A stuffed blowfish, a meticulously-drawn insect, a ravishing lily, and a rhinoceros horn carved with scenes of plants and animals—these were among the wonders of nature and artifice, the marvels that fueled the Renaissance quest for knowledge. This exhibition explores the intellectual and aesthetic motivations of Renaissance naturalists and collectors, whose wonders of nature and artifice were displayed in elaborate gardens, illustrated books, and remarkable cabinets of curiosities. Collectors were driven by curiosity and a sense of wonder about what seemed to be an ever-expanding world. Students from Prof. Felicia Else’s upper-level art history course and Kay Etheridge’s First Year Seminar will draw connections between art and science, and curate a Renaissance-inspired “Chamber of Wonders” in Schmucker Art Gallery with resources from Gettysburg College’s Fine Arts and Special Collections, departments across campus, and individual loans. More information

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  Bodies in Conflict: From Gettysburg to Iraq

  Laura E. Bergin

  The exhibition Bodies in Conflict: From Gettysburg to Iraq not only conveys an ambitious geographic and historical range, but also reflects the sensitivity, ambition, and thoughtfulness of its curator, Laura Bergin ’17. In examining how the human figure is represented in prints and photographs of modern war and political conflict, Laura considers how journalistic photographs, artistic interpretations, and other visual documentation of conflict and its aftermath compare between wars and across historical periods. Specific objects include a print and photographs from the Civil War, propaganda posters from World Wars I and II, photographs and a protest poster from the Vietnam War, and a large-scale photograph of a reconstructed journalistic image of Saddam Hussein’s palace by Iraqi-born contemporary artist Wafaa Bilal. Taken together, the works in the exhibition make a profound political and humanitarian statement about suffering, heroism, death, compassion, and appeals to nationalism throughout wars over the last 150 years. [excerpt]

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  Methods of Nature: Landscapes from the Gettysburg College Collection

  Molly A. Chason, Leah R. Falk, Shannon N. Gross, Bailey R. Harper, Laura G. Waters, and Yan Sun

  Methods of Nature: Landscapes from the Gettysburg College Collection is the third annual exhibition curated by students enrolled in the Art History Methods course. The exhibition is an exciting academic endeavor and incredible opportunity for engaged learning, research, and curatorial experience. The five student curators are Molly Chason ’17, Leah Falk ’18, Shannon Gross ’17, Bailey Harper ’19 and Laura Waters ’19. The selection of artworks in this exhibition includes the depiction of landscape in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century French, American and East Asian cultural traditions in various art forms from traditional media of paintings and prints to utilitarian artifacts of porcelain and a paper folding fan. Landscape paintings in this exhibition are inspired by nature, specific locales and literature. Each object carries a distinctive characteristic, a mood, and an ambience. Collectively, they present a multifaceted view of the landscape in the heart and mind of the artists and intended viewers. [excerpt]

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  William Clutz: Crossings

  Shannon Egan

  This exhibition by renowned American artist William Clutz celebrates his recent gift of artworks to Gettysburg College and is organized in partnership with the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts (WCMFA) in Hagerstown, Maryland.

  The exhibition features twenty-four pastels, drawings and large-scale paintings from the collections at the WCMFA, Mercersburg Academy, and Gettysburg College. Clutz arrived in New York in the 1950s as a peripatetic flâneur, walking through the streets of his Lower East Side neighborhood, astutely observing his fellow passers-by, and depicting them with a concerted awareness of the concentrated colors and painterly directness of the contemporary Abstract Expressionists.