Tell your ART STORY

Maggie Kurkoski is a member of the Smith College class of 2012 and the Brown Post-Baccalaureate Curatorial Fellow in the Cunningham Center.

This past semester, the Smith College community welcomed our new president, Kathleen McCartney, with open arms. The Museum celebrated her recent inauguration with ART STORIES, a special exhibition featuring art that has left a lasting impression on the widespread Smith community.

We received stories from faculty and staff, alumnae and students. Highlighted here are select stories about works on paper, usually housed in the Cunningham Center.

Andy Warhol – Vote McGovern

^{Andy Warhol. American, 1930–1987. Vote McGovern, 1972. 16-color screen print on Arches 88 paper. Purchased. Photography by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 1973.6.}

From Jean K. Dudek, Smith College class of 1979: “‘Vote McGovern’ is a portrait of Richard Nixon. It is not, shall we say, flattering. His face is green. Julie Nixon is an alumna from the class of 1970, before this work was created. I wonder if any other father of a Smithie has his portrait in the Smith College Museum of Art.”

“Monsters” exhibition

From Haley Crockett, Smith College student, class of 2015: “This past January term I worked as a teacher's aide as part of a Hampshire course called K-12 Teaching Pre-practicum. I worked in 9th and 10th grade English and writing classrooms. The 9th grade students had an assignment to compare works of art, and the teacher I was working with, Ms. Strauss, allowed me to choose the works in the museum that the student would compare.”

^{Justin Lieberman. American, b. 1977. Candles, 2012. Ink, watercolor, marker and collage on very thick, rough, white paper. Gift of Suzi Schiffer Parrasch, class of 1982, and Franklin Parrasch on the occassion of her 30th reunion. Photography by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 2012.22.}

“As soon as I saw the monster's exhibit I knew the students would love how vibrant and modern the works were. It was incredible to see students who were usually causing trouble in the classroom engaged and calling to their friends to look at the ‘super awesome’ paintings and pictures of monsters. The visit to the museum with the students was my favorite part of my teaching pre-practicum experience.”

C.A. Lane - Lane's Telescopic View of Great Exhibition of 1851

^{C.A. Lane. British. Lane's Telescopic View of the Ceremony of Her Majesty Opening the Great Exhibition of all Nations, 1851. Engraving printed in color on paper folded into a book-like object. Purchased. Photography by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 1951.136.}

From Janis Mink, Smith College class of 1977: “I loved my 19th century architecture class with Helen Searing. For her class I did a report on a large glass building constructed in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851. It turned out that the Smith Museum had a paper mock-up of the building, which I brought to class and showed.”

^{View through the viewfinder of “Lane's Telescopic View of Great Exhibition of 1851”}

“The Crystal Palace is an important work for the history of modern architecture, as it was an innovative work that used pre-fabrication and pushed glass production to the extreme. It was visionary, as well as environmentally sensitive and poetic, as its length was 1851 feet, corresponding to the year, it spanned the crowns of Hyde Park trees, including them in its interior space and preventing their felling, and it could be broken down and reassembled in another location after the temporary exhibit. And it was not built by an architect!”

ART STORIES will be on view until February 9, 2014. You can find more personal accounts from the Smith community in the Nixon Gallery, second floor, and spread throughout the Smith College Museum of Art.