SCMAinsider

SCMAinsider offers dynamic perspectives on the diverse collections and visions that shape the
Smith College Museum of Art.

We welcome contributions from all members of our community and seek to cultivate a range of
voices and experiences. If you want to contribute to the blog, please contact us at scmacuratorial@smith.edu.

head and shoulders portrait of a man with grey hair wearing a white tank top; another face oriented sideways is visible on his proper left shoulder

The Faces We Wear

February 21, 2023

Meredith Diamond '23 is a Computer Science major and East Asian Studies minor. She has been working for the Cunningham Center for two years now.

How Would You Translate It?

Alicia Argueta ‘23 is a Sociology major with a Latinx American Studies minor. She is currently serving as one of the Co-Chair of Smith’s Latin American Students Organization (LASO). Her interests range from educational justice, community engagement, and climate change to art activism. In her free time you can catch Alicia watching Korean Dramas!

three men and three women dancing in a circle

Studies in Museums J-term ‘23 Course: Provenance as a Key Issue

Mackenzie Peloquin ‘23 is a senior Art History major, Government minor, and Museums Concentrator. Mackenzie has completed curatorial internships at the Maine Historical Society in Portland, ME, the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, MA, and Historic Deerfield in Deerfield, MA.

student sitting at desks watching two professors give a presentation

Class Visit to MFA Boston: Exhibiting Asian Arts

Felicia Jiang 24’ is a history major and a philosophy minor. She studies Japanese and Russian and is interested in the history of cross-cultural communications.

woman standing before students at the front of the south and south east asia exhibit

“I Like,” “I Wish,” “I Wonder:” Reimagining SCMA’s Third Floor Collections Gallery using Visitor Evaluation

Interpretation and Educational Programming Assistant Emily Valin ‘23J discusses how visitor feedback is informing the museum’s reinstallation of its collections.

desk and stool on left with window on right covered with colored notes

Who is Sitting in "Ancestral Spirit Chair"?

Brooklyn Quallen ’25 discusses the function and meaning of Betye Saar's sculpture "Ancestral Spirit Chair."

low seated chair made of partly painted branches with curving arms and extended branches at each corner and attached glass, bones, plastic, metal and dried creeper vine

Grounded: Experiencing the Work of Younes Rahmoun at Smith and Abroad

Indigo Casais ’23 writes about the work of artist Younes Rahmoun, both on Smith's campus and abroad.

Looped and circular color animation using black, white, and green of a seed that grows into a tree with visible roots.

Lorenzo di Credi's "Portinari Tondo": A Painting for a Medici Banker

Danielle Carrabino, Curator of Painting and Sculpture, highlights a recently acquired Italian Renaissance painting.

Tondo (round painting) featuring the Virgin and Saint John the Baptist praying over the Christ Child set against a landscape

Installing Brought to Life: Painted Wood Sculpture from Europe, 1300–1700

Kelly Holbert, Exhibition Manager, gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of preparing and installing an exhibition.

On September 16, an exhibition opened at the SCMA that was different in appearance that most of the exhibitions that had preceded it. This time light was controlled and altered on every surface, from glass windows to partition walls, creating an inviting, dappled, green world filled with color and sound.

Nik, Leah and Matt secure the mount for St. Michael on the underside of the pedestal’s removable top

A curatorial research trip in Northern Europe

Henriette Kets de Vries the Manager of the Cunningham Study Center and the Assistant Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs at SCMA went to Northern Europe last summer to learn more about our German drawing collection.

"train tracks in front of colorful houses"

Smith College Studio Club

The Smith College Studio Club began in 1907. Some members were artists; others were more interested in the study of art.

a group of women in an art studio. some sitting, drawing or talking with one another. others stand and observe the work being done.

Always Been Here: Indigenous Artwork Reemerges from Storage

Isabel Cordova graduated from Smith College in 2019 with a degree in Studio Art, American Studies, and a concentration in Museum Studies. In this post, she reflects on her and Sydney Nguyen’s collaboration with Smith College Museum of Art (SCMA) as the Post-Baccalaureate Assistants for the Indigenous American Collections at Five Colleges Inc.

This post refers to the installation of pieces by Indigenous artists from SCMA’s permanent collection on view in the Art after 1800 America, Europe, Africa Gallery (third level).

This pot is cream in color, with a black scene of animals (deer, bird) and plants (trees, cactus) painted onto the vessel. Mountains and clouds are also featured. A black line encompasses the rim. Like other Tohono O'odham ceramics, a large portion of the vessel is left painted white with little decoration.

Collecting for the future: Taniguchi Shigeru’s Three Colors Paint

Aprile Gallant, Mary Walcott Keyes 1931 Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs and Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs introduces a print by the Japanese artist Taniguchi Shigeru

young person with shoulder-length dark hair wearing a blue collared shirt. Splashes of yellow, blue, and red on top