The Children of Summer

Just Kids: Photographs from the Nicholas Gift
May 25–August 12, 2018

For immediate release: 5/7/18
For further information contact: Douglas Perkins, at deperkin@middlebury.edu or (802) 443-5235

Middlebury, VT—Whether it was a time of joy or a time marked by turbulence, every adult has survived childhood. Whatever the circumstances, one thing is certain: children have always been a magnet for photographers, ranging from elated first-time parents to cool-eyed professionals with decades of experience. For whatever reason, children are likely to be more photographed than any other single subject. Indeed, some of the most universally beloved images to be found in art and literature—from Gainsborough’s Blue Boy and Degas’s Little Dancer to Pinocchio and Huckleberry Finn—present us with a vision of the state of childhood, a vision constantly evolving and reflecting changes in historical experience.

Thanks to the magnanimous gift of Dr. and Mrs. Stephen Nicholas, the Museum now holds many hundreds of photographs of children. Drawn from every corner of the globe and representing a broad spectrum of social and economic circumstances, the images portray children in good times and bad, in states of blissful play or harrowing isolation, or just being kids in a world that either answers their expectations or exceeds their comprehension.

Some of the photographs in this exhibit invite us to imagine lives and situations very different from our own, and some may remind us of moments in our own earlier existence, in another time, another place.

Press Images

Jacques Lowe (American, b. Germany, 1930-2001), Portrait of Young Girl with Doll, c. 1960, gelatin silver print, 13 ½ x 9 ¼ inches. Loan to the Middlebury College Museum of Art from Dr. and Mrs. Stephen Nicholas.

Ken Heyman (American, born 1930), Children Looking at Photographs Taken in their Village Ten Years Earlier, Bayung Gedé, Bali, Indonesia, 1968, gelatin silver print (vintage), 6 x 9 inches. Collection of Middlebury College Museum of Art. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Stephen Nicholas, 2015.085.

Dmitri Baltermants (Russian, 1912–1990), After the Trial and Execution of a Bourgeois Landowner, Vietnam, 1955, gelatin silver print printed under the supervision of the estate in 2003, 16 x 20 inches. Collection of Middlebury College Museum of Art. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Stephen Nicholas, 2016.178.

Ken Heyman (American, born 1930), Nursery, 100 miles from Chinese border, children delight at performance of the dance, U.S.S.R, n.d., gelatin silver print (vintage), 20 x 16 inches. Collection of Middlebury College Museum of Art. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Stephen Nicholas, 2015.100.

Leonard Freed (American, 1929-2006), Family getting out of car in front a ruin, Sicily, Italy, 1973, gelatin silver print (vintage), 10 x 8 inches. Collection of Middlebury College Museum of Art. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Stephen Nicholas, 2016.230.

Danny Lyon (American, born 1942), Children on Ice Cream Vendor’s Box from the series Uptown, Chicago, 1965/2010, gelatin silver print, 10 x 9 3/4 inches. Collection of Middlebury College Museum of Art. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Stephen Nicholas, 2014.112.

Dmitri Baltermants (Russian, 1912-1990), Chukchi boy, gelatin silver print printed under the supervision of the estate in 2003, 14 x 11 inches. Collection of Middlebury College Museum of Art. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Stephen Nicholas, 2016.196.

Augusto Cantamessa (Italian, born 1927), Black child hanging on fence, Italy, c.1950, ferrotyped gelatin silver print (vintage), 15 3/4 x 12 inches. Collection of Middlebury College Museum of Art. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Stephen Nicholas, 2016.305.

Ken Heyman (American, born 1930), Mexican Village [Little girl in street], 1960, printed 1990, gelatin silver print, 6 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches. Collection of Middlebury College Museum of Art. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Stephen Nicholas, 2015.082.

The Middlebury College Museum of Art, located in the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts on Rte. 30 on the southern edge of campus, is free and open to the public Tues. through Fri. from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sat. and Sun. from noon to 5 p.m. It is closed Mondays. The museum is physically accessible. Parking is available in the Mahaney Center parking lot. For further information and to confirm dates and times of scheduled events, please call (802) 443–5007 or TTY (802) 443–3155, or visit the museum’s website at museum.middlebury.edu.