Museum - Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine

Enjoy this object from the collection: Portrait of Maud, 1870-1872, vintage albumen print from glass plate negative, by Julia Margaret Cameron. Museum Purchase, Lloyd O. and Marjorie Strong Coulter Fund, Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Julia Margaret Cameron was a self-taught nineteenth-century photographer who, for approximately a decade during the height of the Victorian Era, made photographs of family, friends, and people hired to work for the family. By using photograph...y to illustrate allegorical, religious, and literary themes, Cameron sought to raise the medium to a level of erudition equal with that of painting. In this photograph, Cameron’s parlor maid, Mary Hillier, poses as Maud, the title character of a Tennyson poem about a melancholic man’s forbidden love for the queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls. Deliberately photographed slightly out of focus, this moody visualization of Tennyson’s poem shows a somber young woman standing against a brick wall wreathed in passionflowers. See more

TUESDAY: Screening and Conversation: ‘The Ballad of Special Ops Cody,’ 2017, with Artist Michael Rakowitz Tuesday, December 8, 2020 | Time: 5:30 PM (online event) Join us online for a special screening of the 2017 stop-motion film The Ballad of Special Ops Cody, followed by a conversation with the artist. Special Ops Cody, filmed at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, meditates on the experience of war and the real human and cultural costs of the U.S.... invasion of Iraq. The screening will be followed by a conversation and Q&A with the artist Michael Rakowitz, an Iraqi-American artist whose conceptual projects, sculptures, and public art installations prompt us to think critically about issues of cultural heritage and connections between past and present in the Middle East. Works by Michael Rakowitz are featured in the exhibition Assyria to America at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. This is an online event. Register here: https://bowdoincollege.qualtrics.com//f/SV_dcIPG7VJoaQYrZz Illustration: Film still from The Ballad of Special Ops Cody, 2017, stop-motion video by Michael Rakowitz. Courtesy of the Artist and Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

Enjoy this object from the collections: Meditation of Kuwannon, ca. 1886, watercolor by John La Farge. Bequest of Miss Mary Sophia Walker. In 1886, John La Farge received an invitation from Augustus Saint-Gaudens to accompany the sculptor to Japan, where he planned to conduct research for a commission from writer Henry Adams to construct a memorial to Adams’s recently deceased wife, Marian Clover Hooper Adams, a Washington-based amateur photographer and the inspiration fo...r Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady." La Farge paused his design work on the interior of Henry Hobson Richardson’s Trinity Church in Boston and joined Saint-Gaudens in Japan. Both artists found inspiration in Kuwannon, the Buddhist goddess of compassion. This watercolor is one of many that La Farge painted of Kuwannon, representations of which served as the basis for Saint-Gaudens’s famous Adams Memorial. Acquired through the bequest of Mary Sophia Walker in 1904, this was part of a donation from the Walker sisters that, along with a previous gift made in 1894, formed the foundation of the College’s watercolor collection. See more

Enjoy this object from the collections: Cyanotype: From the Great Observatory, Chatsworth, August 26th, 1851, from volume ‘Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns,’", August 26, 1851, cyanotype by Anna Atkins. Museum Purchase, Gridley W. Tarbell II Fund Anna Atkins is recognized in the history of photography as the first woman photographer and a pioneer in early and experimental photographic techniques. Using a process that resulted in what is now call...ed cyanotype, Atkins made 411 plates of all the known British seaweeds which she then compiled as a three-volume book set, British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions. Her later works, such as this image from Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns exhibit a sense of visual freedom enjoyed once Atkins was released from the self-imposed restrictive format of her first books Photography Highlights. See more

Enjoy this object from the collection: Bowl, 1175-1225, earthenware, by an unknown Persian artist. Gift of Miss Elizabeth P. Martin. This eye-catching bowl is a striking example of Persian Minai-ware, executed in turquoise glaze with blue and black underglaze, and overglazed accents painted in characteristic white, red and gold. The tondo, the medallion at the bottom of the bowl, bears the image of an Arabian camel lavishly outfitted with a rich red blanket patterned with s...tars and gilded tack. Minai-wares such as this represented a technical advance for Persian ceramicists. Where previously decorations had been restricted to underglazed motifs in painted or incised in slips of limited colors, typically blues and black, Minai-wares (from the Arabic word for glaze) are so-named for the introduction of overglaze painting which allowed the vase-painters to use additional colors, such as the red, white, and gold accents featured here on the camel’s saddle and halter. With additional colors at their disposal and freer technique, the artists responsible for Minai-wares were able to execute more complex and naturalistic scenes and drew heavily on contemporary traditions of book illustration and illumination. As is typical for surviving examples of Minai-ware, this piece features extensive modern restorations. for more views of the bowl: https://artmuseum.bowdoin.edu/objects-1/info/7300

We're hosting the #BCMACostumeChallenge! Join the Museum of Art in getting festive this season. We are starting the #BCMACostumeChallenge to see how artworks might inspire your Halloween costumes. Browse our Collections page (https://artmuseum.bowdoin.edu/) to find inspiration or use famous artworks to guide your design. Students and families: email a photo of you and your costumes (with reference to the specific artwork) to us at [email protected] We'll share some o...f our favorites. The Deadline is October 31, 2020. *Parents, please provide written consent upon submission to allow your child's costume to be featured on the Museum’s social media. The Little Pirate, oil on canvas, by Samuel Worcester Rowse. Bequest of Miss Mary Sophia Walker, Bowdoin College Museum of Art.

Enjoy this object from the collection: Cameo of a Husband and Wife, first century CE, ancient Mediterranean, Roman, two layered chalcedony. Gift of Edward Perry Warren, Esq., Honorary Degree, 1926 Created for private consumption within the family, such cameos were treasured heirlooms among the Roman elite. Cameos became particularly popular beginning in the 1st c. CE, and were carved from from colorful, semi-precious stone such as agate, sardonyx, and onyx, as well as shel...l and glass. The Bowdoin cameo, a fine particularly example of Roman luxury arts, is notable for presenting an intimate portrait of a Roman couple, a rarity among cameos. The man is foregrounded slightly; his left shoulder overlaps his wife and his head is noticeably larger. The duo wear traditional clothing that reinforces their status as elite citizens of Rome. The man is clad in a simple toga draped over his left shoulder, while the woman wears a palla, the mantle of a married woman, draped over her head. The dress, hairstyles, and facial features of both man and woman draw on the imperial portraiture of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and place this cameo in the first century CE. See more

Online Program "Engaging Objects: Reimagining Museum Collections with New Technologies" Monday, November 9, 2020 | 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time ... Diane Zorich, Director of the Smithsonian’s Digitization Program Office, will share her knowledge as an expert in cultural heritage and digital technology to discuss revolutionary digital tools now being used to document objects in the Smithsonian’s vast collections and strategies for preserving that data. She will also speak to the Smithsonian Institution’s recent public release of nearly 3 million digital assetsincluding images and 3-dimensional models sharing its collections, stimulating innovative creative and scholarly work and increasing public enjoyment of the nation’s cultural collections through these open access resources. Just what does it mean to reimagine the museum digitally? Presented by the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. This is a free online program. REGISTER HERE: https://bowdoincollege.qualtrics.com//f/SV_6Q2BY7YxARg46tn Illustration: A small sampling of Smithsonian collections documented by the Digitization Project Office

Online program on THURSDAY, Maine’s Lithographic Landscapes: Town and City Views, 1830-1870 by Earle Shettleworth, Jr., Maine State Historian Thursday, October 8, 2020 | 7:00 p.m. Details and registration here: https://www.bowdoin.edu/calendar/event.html

Online program on WEDNESDAY: An Introduction to "New Views of the Middle Ages: Highlights from the Wyvern Collection" by Kathryn Gerry, curator of the exhibition and visiting assistant professor of medieval art history at Bowdoin College. Wednesday, September 30, 2020 | 7:00 p.m. Details and registration here:... https://www.bowdoin.edu/calendar/event.html See more

The special screening and conversation with the artist Michael Rakowitz has been postponed. We look forward to rescheduling this exciting event later in the semester. Stay tuned for more! "Screening and Conversation: ‘The Ballad of Special Ops Cody,’ 2017, with Artist Michael Rakowitz To be rescheduled later in the semester.... Join us online for a special screening of the 2017 stop-motion film The Ballad of Special Ops Cody, followed by a conversation with the artist. Special Ops Cody, filmed at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, meditates on the experience of war and the real human and cultural costs of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Following the screening, we will be joined live for a conversation and Q&A with the artist Michael Rakowitz, an Iraqi-American artist whose conceptual projects, sculptures, and public art installations prompt us to think critically about issues of cultural heritage and connections between past and present in the Middle East. Works by Michael Rakowitz are featured in the exhibition Assyria to America at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Illustration: Film still from The Ballad of Special Ops Cody, 2017, stop-motion video by Michael Rakowitz. Courtesy of the Artist and Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

Enjoy this article in the New York Review of Books that mentions the Museum’s book, At First Light: Two Centuries of Maine Artists, Their Homes and Studios. You may purchase the book in the Bowdoin store: https://store.bowdoin.edu//at-first-light-two-centuries-of

Enjoy this object from the collection: Studies of Butterflies, Moths, Flies, a Beetle and a Slowworm, ca.1675-1692, black chalk, pen and black ink, watercolor, by Peter Withoos, Dutch, 16541693. Museum Purchase with Funds Contributed by George and Elaine Keyes. Pieter Withoos was born in Amersfoort as the second son of Dutch painter Matthias Withoos (16271703). Closely following the footsteps of his father, Pieter painted album sheets with a wide variety of plants, flower...s, and insects. His work might derive from mounted insect specimens and can be seen as a precursor to scientific illustration; however, his decorative placement of the compellingly rendered, lifelike insects makes a statement as much about his artistic facility as about the rewards of looking at nature close up. Withoos’s drawings were actively commissioned and collected, and it is possible that this one was made for Agneta Block (16291704), a Dutch horticulturalist and art collector who cultivated exotic plants in her country home, Vijverhof, located several miles southeast of Amsterdam. Along with several other artists, Withoos was commissioned to record her rare specimens in watercolor. See more

Join us for a conversation with Photographer Walter Smalling on Thursday, September 3 at 5:00 p.m. Details are available here: https://www.bowdoin.edu/calendar/event.html

Virtual Family Saturday at the Museum of Art October 24, 2020 10:00 AM 11:00 AM Elizabeth Humphrey, curatorial assistant and manager of student programs, leads a Saturday morning program for all ages, including of a discussion of works on view and a related hands-on activity. Enjoy interactive learning and fun!... This is an online program. Register here: https://bowdoincollege.qualtrics.com//f/SV_413dnlAciZua3el Photo: Young visitor listens to audio label for Alma Thomas’ Double Cherry Blossoms, 1973

Enjoy 50% off all posters purchased through the on-line Museum Shop from October 16-24, 2020 Shop here: https://store.bowdoin.edu/collect/art-museum/posters-prints

On the 100th anniversary the passage of the 19th Amendment enjoy this object from the collection: Sojourner Truth with Flowers, 1864, albumen silver print, by an unidentified artist. Museum Purchase, James Phinney Baxter Fund. Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass argued that the suffrage of free Black men should come before that of women. Women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony stated, I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever wor...k or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman. As a Black woman at the intersection of these two schools of thought, Sojourner Truth was expected to wait for freedom to come to her. However, that was never her style. She refused erasure and fought tirelessly for the rights of Black people and women, as she believed it was her calling to preach the truth. She changed her name from Isabella Baumfree to Sojourner Truth and solidified her place in history as an outstanding orator and a dedicated freedom fighter for Black people and women’s suffrage. To support her travels, she solicited donations and sold photographs of herself. See more

On Wednesday, August 19th at 5:30 pm, the Northeast Harbor Library will hold a virtual Zoom Program with Walter Smalling, Michael Komanecky and Anne and Frank G...oodyear. They have authored the book At First Light: Two Centuries of Artists in Maine, Their Homes and Studios. At First Light chronicles twenty-six extraordinary artists of the last two hundred years who have lived and worked in Maine. Published to coincide with the state's bicentennial in 2020, the volume considers the significant contributions artists have made to a deeper and more profound understanding of Maine's history, its land and its peoples. Maine's unique and breathtaking landscape, from its rugged coastline, quaint harbors, majestic mountains, and verdant forests continues to have a powerful effect on the artists who are drawn to its shores. This talk is free and open to the public. Please email [email protected] or call 276-3333 to register.

On this day in Maine's history, August 13, 1884, painter and inventor Rufus M. Porter died. Porter, born in 1792, began his artistic life as a decorative painte...r and painter of portraits and later branched into murals. He painted what he knew landscapes depicting the farms around Bridgton, his childhood home, and seaport scenes of Portland where he lived and studied as a young man. A prolific inventor, his design for a revolving rifle cylinder was sold to Samuel Colt, helping to revolutionize the munitions industry. He founded the magazine Scientific American in 1845 to encourage innovation in American arts and sciences. Images courtesy of Bowdoin College Museum of Art.

Enjoy this object from the collection: Decadrachm of Syracuse; Obverse: Four-horse chariot (quadriga) and driver; winged Nike flying above; cuirass, grieves and helmet (in exergue); Reverse: Head of the nymph Arethusa surrounded by dolphins, 412 BCE-405 BCE, silver. Ancient Mediterranean, Sicily (Greek). Gift of Edward Perry Warren Esq., Honorary Degree, 1926 During the rule of Dionysius I (ca. 405367 BCE), a beautiful series of large silver coins was minted by the Greek ...colony of Syracuse, the chief city of Sicily. This coin was struck with dies prepared by master Sicilian engraver Euainetos. Though this example is unsigned, the artist’s distinct style permits a confident attribution. The reverse (tails) of this large denomination presents the portrait in profile of the sea nymph Arethusa surrounded by four dolphins. From its earliest examples, it is evident that Syracuse preferred a circular format for its coins. See more

Enjoy this piece from the collection: Joined Great Chair, ca. 16661667, carved, joined oak by William Searle, English, born ca. 1634. Gift of Ephraim Wilder Farley, Class of 1836, 1872.1 Bowdoin’s chair collection began in 1872 with the arrival of this extraordinary joined great chair. William Searle, an English-trained joiner who emigrated to America in 1663, is believed to have produced it for his own household in Ispwich, Massachusetts. After his death, his widow marrie...d another joiner, Thomas Dennis (16381706), who like Searle was from Devonshire, England. Dennis took over Searle’s workshop, and it is through the Dennis family that the chair descended. The handsomely carved ornament, with anthropomorphic figures decorating the stiles, is based on the Renaissance and Baroque strapwork seen on furniture from the region in which Searle trained. Used for many years as the president’s chair at Commencement, the chair is now recognized as among the nation’s finest examples of seventeenth-century furniture. See more

Enjoy this piece from the collection: Running Fence, 1976, graphite, pastel, charcoal, fabric collage on bristol board by Christo. Running Fence consisted of an 18-foot-high white nylon fence that stretched across 24.5 miles of Sonoma County, California, and extended into the Pacific Ocean. Conceived by Christo (19352020) and Jeanne-Claude (19352009) and realized from September 10 to 20, 1976, the work was one of many large-scale public art projects by the artists that... reshaped the perception and use of environmental or institutional spaces through interventions such as wrapping buildings or large land masses. Here, by collaging the fabric of Running Fence into a landscape drawn in pastel, pencil, and charcoal, Christo simulatesand makes the case forthis major work that required not only the support of local farmers and politicians but also significant funding. Christo and Jeanne-Claude paid for the Running Fence and their other works by selling drawings such as these and prints to aficionados near and far. Museum Purchase, George Otis Hamlin Fund with the aid of a matching grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C., a federal agency. Bowdoin College Museum of Art.

Enjoy this drawing from the collection: "Still Life: Peaches and One Pomegranate," 1927, graphite, by Marsden Hartley, American, 1877-1943. Museum Purchase, George Otis Hamlin Fund. Marsden Hartley, the Maine-born modernist closely associated with the circle of friends around Alfred Stieglitz in New York, lived an itinerant life that brought him in contact with diverging artistic inspirations. The ponderous Still Life: Peaches and One Pomegranate is a marked departure from many of Hartley’s earlier, expressionist works. During the 1920s, he traveled to Aix-en-Provence, France, where he immersed himself in the works of Cezanne and produced multiple drawings of still lifes and landscapes that privileged simplicity of form and investigated spatial relations.