• Middlebury College Museum of Art to Close for the Summer for Renovations

    As the Middlebury College Museum of Art approaches its twentieth anniversary, it has become apparent that portions of its original sprinkler system need to be replaced. Because this is a complicated process that affects numerous spaces, the museum will need to be closed for the entire summer beginning on May 14.

  • Middlebury College Museum of Art Focuses on Contemporary Socio-political African Art

    This February, responses to urban, natural, and economic environments by contemporary sub-Saharan African artists will be on view in a thought-provoking exhibition at the Middlebury College Museum of Art. From appropriated waste materials turned into site-specific installations and sculptures to eerily compelling photographs of ravaged and degraded environments, Environment and Object • Recent African Art will include works of art that scrutinize man-made environmental disasters, natural resource problems, deforestation, and other ecological issues.

  • Wings of a Triptych, by the Master of the St. Ursula Legend

    These two panels, purchased at auction at Sotheby’s London, once served as the wings of a triptych, most likely commissioned by a private patron for personal devotion in a home. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the royal figure depicted in the right panel may well be a rare portrait of the English King Henry VI.

  • Student Course Culminates in Museum Exhibition

    During the spring of 2011 six students in the History of Art and Architecture course Art Museums: Theory and Practice, taught by Museum Director Richard Saunders, were invited to select a recent acquisition from the Middlebury College Museum of Art’s permanent collection as the focus of their study. Over the course of the semester the students researched the history and meaning of their respective works, and their research culminated in the installation of these six objects in this fall’s exhibition How Did I Get Here?

  • Artist Richard Dupont’s Works on View at Middlebury College Museum of Art

    New York artist Richard Dupont employs cutting edge technology to produce drawings, prints, sculptures and installations that explore opportunities for self-surveillance and the perception of identity in an increasingly digital world. In 2000 and 2004, he made full-body laser scans of himself that would serve as templates for future works. Four of these are on display at the museum.

  • The Museum’s Focus on Maya Continues

    Dr. Christopher R. Andres will speak about his discoveries and excavations at a Maya center in Tipan, Belize in an illustrated talk at 4:30 p.m. on Tues., Nov. 8 in the Robert A. Jones ’59 House.

  • Ancient Maya Pottery Comes to the College

    A world-renowned collection of ancient Maya painted pottery, excavated by the University of Pennsylvania Museum nearly a century ago and reinterpreted in light of recent research in the field, provides the centerpiece for Painted Metaphors: Pottery and Politics of the Ancient Maya, which opens September 16 at the Middlebury College Museum of Art and runs through December 11.

  • The Arts Fuse Reviews Fairfield Porter:Raw

    Fairfield Porter’s elegant paintings were the subject of a 1983 retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston that at once permanently elevated his reputation and ensconced him into a period of modernist figuration that curators have been neglecting, in one form or another, for decades. Fairfield Porter: Raw at the Middlebury College Museum of Art afforded an unusual opportunity to see his work assembled in a serious way.

  • Poet John Ashbery Visits His Portrait

    While in Middlebury to give a reading at the Breadloaf School of English, poet John Ashbery took a moment to explore the Museum’s current exhibition Fairfield Porter: Raw and to pose next to Porter’s untitled portrait of a man seated near a lamp, for which Ashbery was the sitter.

  • The Friends Raise a Glass to “The Empty Wineglass”

    At their 40th Anniversary Gala in October, the Friends of the Art Museum were asked to consider three potential acquisitions for the Museum’s collection and to vote on which would stay. After an evening of food, drink, and dancing (and some heavy lobbying from various curators), the Friends chose to purchase Issack Koedijk’s The Empty Wineglass.