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.

"When this you see remember me": Embroidered Samplers at SCMA

Girls worked on their first samplers when they were as young as six or seven. These first samplers were called marking samplers, and they often featured the alphabet and numbers along with demonstrations of basic embroidery techniques. If girls attended secondary school, they might also make another more decorative embroidery, called a pictorial sampler.
Adam and Eve standing under and reaching up toward large Tree of Life with small plant on either side of each figure and two clouds in sky on each side of tree, child's name and date underneath surrounded by stylized flowering vine

Vanguards of Ukiyo-e: The Women of Modern Japanese Printmaking

These women, who have embraced the art of ukiyo-e in the 20th and 21st centuries, differ widely in style from both the works of the famed forefathers of Japanese printmaking and one another. However, the influence of those who came before left a definite imprint, while the global exchange and rights gained for women after World War II allowed for development of the individual styles developed by these contemporary print makers.
Sheets of paper and hats swept up in the wind as travelers struggle with the wind under bare trees. Silhouette of Mt Fuji in distance.

Theresa Bernstein at the SCMA: Armistice Day Parade

In 1918, the war ended on the eleventh day of the eleventh month at 11 am, when the armistice between Germany and the Allied forces went into effect. One year later, Bernstein watched the Armistice Day parade as it made its way down Fifth Avenue in New York City.
city square teeming with people watching a military parade in front of large stone monument, bare park trees behind them with tall buildings on the opposite side

The 2018-2019 Student Picks Lottery Is Now Open!

Enter by September 21st for a chance to curate your own pop-up art show in the Cunningham Center for Prints, Drawings and Photographs. Student Picks exhibitions take place on the last Thursday of every month from 4-8pm as part of SCMA's Thursday evening student programming.
Colorful swirling sky with Saint Nicholas, cats, faces and swimming fish, quarter moon face on either side. At the bottom is a sepia toned table and people seated around it.

Hijacked Art, Continued.

Anyone can parody a work; these artists truly transform their inspirations, often turning them into activist symbols.
Four images of Campbell’s soup which appears at first glance like a copy of Warhol’s print. However, the kinds of soup are “Artist’s Brains Soup,” “Model’s Meat Soup,” “Critic’s Tongue Soup,” and “Museum Director’s Tripe Soup.” The seal on the cans is of a small skull, and the print is streaked with blood.

Your Move: Kay Sage's Surrealist Assemblages

In the late 1930s and early 1940s Kay Sage developed a personal Surrealist style based on mysterious architectural forms in somber-colored settings. Although the forms are painted realistically, they convey an impression or feeling rather than actual objects.
tall wood scaffolding-like shapes on grey background, curved bridge-like scaffolding shape at bottom

Toulouse-Lautrec and Parisian Nightlife

Born to a wealthy, artistically inclined family in 1864, Toulouse-Lautrec is known for his vibrant, theatrical depictions of turn of the century Parisian life and the characters that made it so vivid. Many of these characters were the singers and dancers of nightclubs such as the Moulin Rouge.
sketch of a woman wearing a high, puffy collar and a hat; part of the profile of a man with a tophat can be seen on the right edge
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