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
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This exhibition marks the inauguration on campus of a replica of Acconci’s Way Station I, which was constructed in 1983 near what is now McCardell Bicentennial Hall. The exhibition and its accompanying publication place the work in the context of Acconci’s ongoing, extraordinarily influential career. Supported in part by the Committee on Art in Public Places.
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This exhibit showcases works from the collection that are rarely on view, including a mobile by Alexander Calder; sculptures by William Zorach, William King, and Harry Bertoia; glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Dale Chihuly; watercolors by George Grosz and Luigi Lucioni; and oil paintings by Arthur Davies, Edwin Dickinson, Ivan Albright, John Sloan, Grant Wood, Alice Neel, and Rackstraw Downes.
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This exhibit assembles for the first time many of Hopper’s twenty-three known Vermont watercolors and six known drawings. Of these particular works, relatively unknown to most and rarely on view, are subjects that depict details of the hill farms bordering the White River. Marked by nuances of distinctive color, light, and shadow, they are studies in artistic process, illustrating how Hopper’s vision of Vermont developed between the time of his first visit, in 1927, and his last, in 1938.
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Burtynsky’s iconic photographs of the quarries of Vermont are explored within the context of the geological and social history of the area, including in particular the Italian immigrant stoneworkers in the granite quarries near Barre. This exhibition has been extended through early June in conjunction with Burtynsky’s designation as an honorary degree recipient at Middlebury’s 2013 commencement proceedings.
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Linear Thinking was conceived in conjunction with several spring courses in the History of Art and Architecture. It includes prints and one sculpture by artists in the museum’s collection as well as a temporary wall drawing by Sol LeWitt (1928–2007). LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #394, which was first conceived in 1983 at the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux in France, is on loan to the museum from the artist’s estate and will be installed during the week of February 25 by students in Professor Edward Vazquez’s course “Minimalism: Art, Objects, and Experience.”
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Visiting Professor of Studio Art May Mantell selected these prints in conjunction with her January-term course Introduction to Black and White Photography. The criteria were two: that they be exceptionally beautifully crafted silver prints and that they be meaningful works of art made by significant artists.
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As a prelude to the national presidential election in November, the museum is showing publicly for the first time a group of historic political cartoons by the syndicated artist Patrick Bruce “Pat” Oliphant (b. 1935). A 1967 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning, Oliphant has been called “probably the most influential cartoonist now working” by The New York Times. The exhibit is comprised of ten political cartoons and one sculpture, created over a span of forty years, which represent each of the presidencies from Lyndon B. Johnson to George W. Bush.
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China Modern is a vast and substantive exhibition of approximately 175 objects which takes an in-depth look at the rich tradition of Chinese designs and styles in advertising, packaging, and promotional art for cinema, music, comic books, pulp fiction, fashion, games and toys. The exhibition’s iconic images chronicle China’s changing attitudes, identity, and its transition to a giant, commercial superpower.
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First published in 1903, Alfred Stieglitz’s magazine Camera Work quickly became one of the most influential photographic journals in the country. Created in response to the emergence of haphazard snapshots being taken by vast numbers of amateur photographers using Kodak box cameras, Camera Work set the standard for photographic art. Focusing on the work of the Photo-Secession, an elite group of invited members presided over by Stieglitz, the magazine promoted photography as a means of personal expression through articles about artistic issues and illustrations of fine art photography.
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Organized by Visiting Assistant Professor Stephen Whiteman, with translations by a number of colleagues in the College’s Chinese and History Departments, this installation demonstrates the endurance and continued vitality of Chinese calligraphy. Works on view, all from the Museum’s collection, are primarily contemporary inscriptions of revered texts. A manuscript dating to the 7th century C.E. and some of the accoutrements of the art of calligraphy are also included.
