Eloquent Vistas: The Art of 19th-Century American Landscape Photography from the George Eastman House Collection
The American land, expansive and spectacular, has been a central force in shaping the American culture and forging the American character. From the Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper to the majestic landscapes of Ansel Adams, it has inspired the creativity of authors and artists and captured our collective imagination.
This exhibition of 78 photographic landscapes from the 19th century reveals this imaginative spirit. Ranging from the 1850s to the end of the 19th century and from the East to the vast “new” West, the images include daguerreotypists’ views of Niagara Falls, remnants of Civil War landscapes, and quiet eastern streams. Promoters of an expanding network of railroad lines provide us with images of graceful bridges and curving valleys lined with small industrial towns. Picturesque waterfalls are meant to draw people to growing towns in the upper Midwest. Images from the explorations of the spectacular West—Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, the Green River, and the West Coast—are undeniably impressive.
Eloquent Vistas includes well-known photographers of the era: Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Eadweard Muybridge, William Henry Jackson, John Moran, Carleton E. Watkins, William H. Rau, William Bell, and others. These men documented the land for government-sponsored geological and geographical surveys, for the railroad companies, and for the tourist trade. Many accomplished their commissions in a truly artistic way, so that today we appreciate their images more for their aesthetic value than for their topographical depiction of place. This exhibition celebrates their achievements.
Eloquent Vistas is drawn from George Eastman House’s collection of over 3,500 prints and 6,500 stereographs of 19th-century American landscapes. The exhibition includes 10 text panels that discuss topics related to the exhibition, including the albumen print, photography in the 19th century, government surveys, and the role of photography in opening up the West.
Eloquent Vistas: The Art of 19th-Century American Landscape Photography from the George Eastman House Collection was organized by George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, New York.
On view now through April 20, at the Middlebury College Museum of Art. Free
Rephotographing 19th-Century Government Surveys in the Western U.S.: Documenting Over 130 Years of Environmental Change
In this slide lecture, Jeffrey Munroe, assistant professor of geology, discusses his work applying historical rephotography to the documentation of environmental change in the western U.S. He provides examples using photographs taken in Utah by Timothy O’Sullivan with the King Survey in 1869, and by William Henry Jackson with the Hayden Survey in 1870. Two of the O’Sullivan photographs he has worked with are included in the exhibition Eloquent Vistas: The Art of 19th-Century American Landscape Photography from the George Eastman House Collection. Cosponsored by the Department of Geology, Atwater Commons, and the Middlebury College Museum of Art.
Thursday, April 3, at 4:30 p.m., in Hillcrest Environmental Center, Room 103. Free
Print the Legend: Photography, the West, and the American Imagination
Martha A. Sandweiss, professor of American studies and history at Amherst College, gives an illustrated slide lecture that examines how 19th-century photographs both reflected and helped to shape the nation’s understanding of the far West. Although photographs offered many Americans their first glimpse of a distant place, they often proved less persuasive than more dramatic and imaginative kinds of pictures. Cosponsored by the Departments of History of Art and Architecture, American Studies, and Geography, the Office of Environmental Affairs, the Program in Environmental Studies, Atwater Commons, and the Middlebury College Museum of Art.
Thursday, April 10, at 4:30 p.m., in the Mahaney Center for the Arts, Room 221. Free
Art Now: Recent Acquisitions in Photography and Film/Video
 |
| From Tracy Moffatt's "Doomed." |
Since 1999, the project in Contemporary Photography and Film/Video has offered students the opportunity to participate in the selection of acquisitions for the museum collection. The works purchased over the first six years of this program comprised the spring 2006 exhibition Screened and Selected. This spring, Art Now features the most recent additions to this growing body of contemporary art. Selected in January 2007, the new works on view are all videos that were evaluated in detail by students in Chief Curator Emmie Donadio’s winter term course Curatorial Practicum in Contemporary Photography and Video Art: Brent Ballard ’10, Celia Rothschild ’10, Andrea Glaessner ’08, and Josh Dihle ’07. The videos were presented to a jury of interested majors in the Departments of History of Art and Architecture, Studio Art, and Film and Media Studies, and to museum assistants. The works are by Tracy Moffatt, Jacco Olivier, and the Swiss team of Peter Fischli and David Weiss. In addition, the installation will feature a work acquired in 2002: Island (1999), by video-art pioneer Peter Campus.On view now through August 10 at the Middlebury College Museum of Art. Free
Tombs, Temples, Palaces, and Tea: Ceramics in Asia and Beyond
This exhibition explores the practical and social uses of ceramics in Asia. Asian ceramics are the most varied in the world: they have been used for vessels, ritual objects, sculpture, and for even architectural ornament. They are also unrivaled in technical quality and in the sheer volume in existence. They played important roles in Korea and Japan, where they lay at the heart of the tea ceremony, while in the Islamic world ceramic tiles were indispensable to architectural facades. Asian ceramics, particularly Chinese, were exported in staggering quantities and exerted a profound influence on Western ceramics. Chinese and Japanese porcelains were widely copied in the West, and the wabi aesthetic of the Japanese tea ceremony informs almost all modern studio pottery. We invite you to explore the wonderful world of clay transformed.
Students in the fall 2007 College writing course on Asian ceramics, taught by Colin Mackenzie, curate this exhibition.
On view through December 7, at the Middlebury College Museum of Art, Robert F. Reiff Gallery of Asian Art. Free
Between Biblical and Contemporary Judaism: The Fifth-Century Aramaic Tombstone from Zoar in the Middlebury College Museum of Art
Gallery Talk by Reiff Intern Shahar Fineberg ’10.
Thursday, April 24, at 4:30 p.m., in the Middlebury College Museum of Art. Free
The Pragmatism of Prayer: Duality in Italian Devotional Panels
Stuart Hurt ’07, museum graduate intern, offers a gallery talk about Italian Renaissance painting practice, illustrating his points with a panel painting attributed to Lippo d’Andrea in the museum’s collection.
Thursday, May 1, at 4:30 p.m., in the Middlebury College Museum of Art. Free
Friends of the Art Museum Annual Supper and Awards
A members-only dinner and awards presentation for local artists, art students, and arts benefactors, for distinction in the visual arts. For membership information, please call Andrea Solomon at 802-443-2034.
Sunday, May 4, at 5:30 p.m., at Kirk Alumni Center.
Patrick Dougherty Video on View
Patrick Dougherty’s three-week residency on campus last September, which resulted in So Inclined, the site-specific sculpture of woven sticks at the entrance to the Mahaney Center for the Arts, is the topic of a video documentary by film and digital media graduate intern Daniel E. Houghton’06. Houghton’s video, which contains conversations with the artist, scenes from the harvesting of the trees, and footage of many individuals who built the sculpture, is screened continuously in the lower lobby of the building for the duration of the school year.