Events

UPCOMING EVENTS

Museum Lecture
“To All Art Lovers”: David Teniers and Theatrum Pictorium

Wednesday, April 8 | 4:30pm
Mahaney Arts Center, Room 125  

Theatrum Pictorium, the first ever catalog of a significant paintings collection, is a profound art historical resource. Sabarsky Graduate Fellow Eloise McFarlane ’24.5, curator of “To All Art Lovers,” will talk about the development of the exhibition, which highlights this influential catalogue and invites conversation centered around the collection, preservation, and artistic interpretation of works.

Family Day at the Museum

Saturday, April 11, 2026 | 1:00–4:00pm
Mahaney Arts Center, Lower Lobby and Museum
FREE (registration is encouraged)

The Museum is excited to host art lovers of all ages for a FREE afternoon of sketching and art making activities for ages 5 & up, family art themed BINGO, and guided gallery drawing. Art activities in the MAC lobby will give you the opportunity to try your hand at creating objects inspired by the Museum’s collection. Friends of the Art Museum board members will be in the galleries and ready to chat about the collection. Light snacks and refreshments will be available in the lobby.

This is a free event, but please register so we know how many attendees to expect. Feel free to bring more family or friends on the day even if they have not been registered.

Museum Lecture
Come to Your Senses!—Sensiotics and Understandings of Arts and Culture in Africa and Beyond

Wednesday, April 15 | 4:30pm
Mahaney Arts Center, Room 125
 

This multimedia and multisensorial presentation is in the African and African Diaspora tradition of “call and response”—with images, sounds, film, and movement. With the audience, Professor Henry Drewal will consider Sensiotics, an approach that centers the crucial importance of the senses, our body-minds and sense-abilities, in our experiences with arts, cultures, and histories. While the focus of the talk is on the arts of Yorùbá-speaking people of West Africa, Drewal will argue that Sensiotics has global implications.

Speaker Bio

Henry John Drewal, Evjue-Bascom Professor Emeritus from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, taught African and African Diaspora arts histories, published widely, curated multiple exhibitions, performed, and made documentary films, the latest—Dancing Gods—released in 2025. His journey was inspired by his early experience as an apprentice under the master Yorùbá sculptor Ṣanusi, whose body knowledge and sense-abilities opened new pathways to learning and led to Drewal’s theory and method called Sensiotics. Drewal is the author of Gẹ̀lẹ̀dẹ́: Art and Female Power among the Yorùbá; Yorùbá: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought; Beads, Body, and Soul: Art and Light in the Yorùbá Universe; Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and its Diasporas; Introspectives: Contemporary Art by Americans and Brazilians of African Descent; and Striking Iron: the Art of African Blacksmiths. He is the recipient of numerous awards including Guggenheim, Fulbright, NEH, NEA, CASVA, Metropolitan Museum, Rockefeller, and Bard Fellowships.

Beyond the Canvas: A Theatrical Exploration of Damian Stamer’s Angels & Ghosts

Thursday, April 16 | 4:30pm
Middlebury College Museum of Art
 

Join Beyond the Page theatre artists Craig Maravich and Madison Middleton for an original theatrical experience inspired by the Museum’s current exhibit Damian Stamer: Angels & Ghosts. This immersive event blends storytelling, music, and audience conversation to explore themes of memory, art-making, and humanity in an increasingly technological world.

2026 Friends of the Art Museum Annual Brunch

Sunday, April 19, 2026 | 11:30am–1:30pm
Mahaney Arts Center, Lower Lobby and Museum
Tickets: $40 per person

Join the Friends of the Art Museum for our Annual Brunch where we drink, dine, mingle, vote on yearly member business, and enjoy a special presentation. This year, students in the Museum Associates Program will be in the galleries to guide attendees through the various exhibits, and Interim Director Katy Smith Abbott will present a short slide show with updates about the design development phase of the new museum project. A buffet-style brunch will be served and will include a card bar (cash no longer accepted) with one free drink per event ticket. The event will conclude with a student musical performance.

If you’re not currently a member of the Friends, be sure to activate or renew your membership to guarantee you’ll be able to attend.

Overnight Bus Trip: Friends of the Art Museum Spring Art Swing

Tuesday, May 5–Wednesday, May 6
Williamstown / Lenox / North Adams, MA
Reservations open through Friday, April 24
Fee: $600 per member ($675 for non-members)
 

Tuesday, May 5

Departure
Our private, climate-controlled motor coach will leave from the Mahaney Arts Center parking lot around 7:30am, and morning snacks will be served once we’re on the road.

Williamstown Art Conservation Center, Williamstown, MA
Our first stop takes us to Williamstown, Massachusetts where a guided tour of the conservation center will give insights into the preservation process. We’ll see how art history intersects with modern scientific methods and detective work as conservationists work to restore fine art pieces to their original glory.

The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA
After lunch at the museum cafe, guests will gather for a curated tour of special exhibitions. We are then free to explore the museum’s extensive collections of European and American art ranging from the Renaissance to the early 20th century. Guests can venture outside to visit Ground/Work, an exhibition of six monumental sculptures set on the museum’s expanse of lawns, meadows, and walking trails.

The Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA
The new Williams College Museum of Art, currently under construction, is due to open in the fall of 2027. Join us for a talk given by Communications Manager Rebecca Dravis who will discuss the evolution of the design and mission of the new museum. This is an optional event offered from 4:00–5:00pm.

Tuesday evening is open for guests to explore Williamstown and dine in a restaurant of their choice.

Wednesday, May 6

Frelinghuysen Morris House and Studio, Lenox, MA
Our group will depart Williamstown for Lenox, Massachusetts where we will be treated to a private tour of the estate of George L. K. Morris and Suzy Frelinghuysen. Morris and Frelinghuysen were significant figures in the history of American art as artists, collectors, and intellectuals. The tour will take us through their modernist house and studio, and will allow us to view both the art they created and the art they collected. Their personal collection includes significant works by their contemporaries including Picasso, Braque, Leger, and Gris.

MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA
The final stop on our western Mass swing will be at MASS MoCA in North Adams. This vast complex for contemporary art, art fabrication, and performance “exhibits art by both well-known and emerging artists, focusing on large-scale, immersive installations that would be impossible to realize in conventional museums.” We have private tours scheduled that will include visits to the exhibitions of the works of Sol Lewitt, Jimena Sarno, Sarah Oppenheimer, and James Turrell.

Return Home
We will depart North Adams to return to Middlebury in the late afternoon. Snacks will be served once we’re underway.

What’s Included?

The fee for our two day trip is $600 per member ($675 for non-members). Included in the fee:
- Bus transportation, and snacks on the bus
- One night’s accommodations at The Williams Inn
- All meals, except for Tuesday night dinner when guests can explore the dining options in Williamstown and dine on their own
- Entrance to all of the museums and tours on our itinerary