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.

January at SCMA: Museums and Meditation at MacLeish

Anna Ziegler is a senior Art History major and works at the Cunningham Center at SCMA.

Remembering Iwami Reika (1927-2020)

Today's post is from Aprile Gallant, Senior Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs and Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs.  

I was saddened to hear of the recent death of the Japanese printmaker Iwami Reika. Hilary Tolman, Smith class of 1987, in whose honor twenty-three of the artist’s works have been donated to the SCMA collection, gave me the news, as she knew of my particular interest and high regard for Iwami’s work.

Reika Iwami. Japanese, 1927-2020. Autumn Waves, 1981. Woodcut printed in black and metallic ink with embossing on medium thick, slightly textured, cream-colored paper (50/50). 15 ¾ x 12 inches. The Hilary Tolman, class of 1987, Collection. Gift of The Tolman Collection, Tokyo. SC 2014.12.16

Staying Inside | Present Preoccupations

Staying Inside is a series on SCMAinsider, the museum’s blog, that regularly features contributions from SCMA staff and students about what we are into right now ...
Still from Hopinka's "Cloudless Blue Egress of Summer": slightly cloudy blue sky filling top of frame with ocean water below the horizon line.

Remembering the Images of Rome

Guest blogger Margaret Adams Groesbeck is a retired Amherst College librarian and enthusiastic member of the Smith College Museum of Art. She is a longtime student and sometime translator of Italian.
La pianta grande di Roma (The Large Plan of Rome)

Staying Inside | Art in a time of Plague

In times of despair, I have often found comfort in history. Just when you think you are living in an unprecedented moment, history teaches us that people have overcome similar situations.
Anthony van Dyck, Madonna of the Rosary

Staying Inside | Staying Connected

The great picture—Milton Avery’s Surf Fisherman (1950)—hangs in a third-floor gallery in the Smith College Museum of Art. The not-so-great picture is stored on my phone. It’s one of a dozen or so that I took in a walk through the galleries on what I knew was going to be the museum’s last day open for visitors.
seated figure in on shore in center foreground pulling back on a line with fish on either side of him, three gulls overhead, calm water in central image, cloudless sky beyond

Staying Inside | Learning Something New

Staying Inside is a series on SCMAinsider, the museum’s blog, that regularly features contributions from SCMA staff and students about what we are into right now, be it a book, a work of art, a song, a podcast, a recipe, a way to get outside, a performance; anything, really, that we are holding close or that brings us comfort and connection right now. Today's post is from Aprile Gallant, Senior Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs and Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs. 

What Will Come, William Kentridge

How Essential Is Art?

When I started thinking about doing an exhibition on the Great American Depression a year ago I did not anticipate the exhibition being shut down because of COVID-19 and potentially reopening during an actual Recession.
Depression era cityscape; crowds of people

SCMAinsider: Staying Inside

Staying Inside is a new series on SCMAinsider, the museum’s blog. It will regularly feature contributions from SCMA staff and students about what we are into these days, be it a book, a work of art, a song, a podcast, a recipe, a way to get outside, a performance; anything, really, that we are holding close or that brings us comfort and connection right now.
Woman sitting on couch in living room with dog at her feet on the right, child looking through window at train passing by on the right
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