![Grid 4 rectangles wide by three rectangles tall of collage in palette of sea green when together, look like a map of the earth](/sites/default/files/2023-05/SCMA-Puckett_SIP%20website%20copy_0.jpg)
![Two part collage, each collage shows two women in dresses standing side by side with flowers behind and in front of the them.](/sites/default/files/2023-05/SCMA_Andrea%20Chung%20Diptych_SIP%20Website%20copy.jpg)
![Three panel multi-color woodblock print of people dressed in 1800's clothes walking in the middle of the street with building on either side. Chinese lettering can be found in various spots of the print.](/sites/default/files/2023-05/Yoshitora_SIP_website.jpg)
![Three etching from a book all in a row-depicting two figures on left foreground and a town in the background_ order left to right, Envy, War; War, Poverty; Poverty, Humility](/sites/default/files/2023-05/Visscitudes%20All%20three_website%202100_900%20copy.jpg)
![Back torso of a woman with leopard patterned brown top standing in front of a white wall with thin blue lines decorating the entire wall.](/sites/default/files/2023-05/Ferarrio%202%20%281%29%20copy.jpg)
Sum of Its Parts: Multi-Panel Works on Paper from the Collection
This installation includes multi-panel photographs, prints, and collages from the SCMA collection made between the 17th and 21st centuries. This selection highlights the long history and many approaches to making modular works of art.
Artists choose to make artworks in multiple parts for a variety of reasons: to convey an expansive sense of space, to tell a story, or put images in conversation with one another. In some cases, materials are a factor: the size of available paper or printing plates can challenge an artist’s ability to make more complex images. Being able to construct an image from individual panels gives artists flexibility.
While many of SCMA’s 24,000 works on paper are accessible for viewing by appointment in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings and Photographs, multi-panel works present some challenges. Some are large, or have specific display requirements. These conditions make them difficult to be viewed when they are not installed as they were intended: in their totality and in relation to the viewer’s body.
This exhibition is supported by the Charlotte Frank Rabb, class of 1935, Fund.