Past Exhibitions

Throughout the Museum’s history the staff has produced a wide array of critically acclaimed exhibitions both with works from the permanent collection and with objects borrowed from other institutions.

In addition, we have hosted a number of nationally and internationally recognized exhibits curated by organizations that specialize in traveling shows. Some of our more recent exhibitions are archived here. Please browse the links to the left to view our past exhibitions by year

  • Making Sense of Thomas Kinkade

    –

    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.

  • Art Now: Doug and Mike Starn

    –

    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.

  • Tombs, Temples, Palaces, and Tea: The Social Roles of Ceramics in Asia

    –

    Robert F. Reiff Gallery. 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 their sheer volume.

  • Classical Painting and Ritual Bronzes on View at Middlebury Museum

    –

    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.

  • Wafting on a Heavenly Breeze: Hand-Painted Kites from China

    –

    Dragons, phoenixes, snakes, bats, and mythical figures fill the sky in this exhibition of hand-crafted kites using traditional materials—bamboo, paper, and silk. The majority of these kites come from Weifang, the birthplace of kite making. This exhibition will replace the “Beyond Chinggis Khan: Mongolian Buddhist Art from the Rubin Museum of Art” which has been cancelled.

  • Art Now: Recent Acquisitions in Photography and Film/Video

    –

    Overbrook Gallery. For the past eight years the Project in Contemporary Photography and Film/Video has offered students the opportunity to participate in the selection of works of art for the Museum collection. Over the course of the spring the various Art Now installations will feature videos by Tracy Moffett, Jacco Olivier, and the Swiss team of Fischli and Weiss, along with photographs by Roger Ballen, Bernd and Hilla Becher, and Robert Mapplethorpe, among others.