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.

Collecting the Past: Marilyn Bridges

In 1976, during a trip to Peru, Marilyn Bridges flew in a small plane for the first time over the Nazca lines. She had previously taken photographs for travel publications but had now discovered a type of photography that would define the rest of her career.
aerial view of very tall mountains with ruins nestled in the center

Collecting the Past: Sled and Seal

The sheer isolation of the Canadian Arctic allowed native Inuit populations to remain relatively uninfluenced by Anglos until the nineteen fifties, when a flurry of government service ventures pushed northward.
two columns of gray brick, with a long, black structure balanced on top of them. in the top left corner, two red and white squares with patterns inside and a black semicircle.

Spotlight on Jiha Moon

By using hanji paper, elements of contemporary Asian pop culture, and Western art techniques, Moon’s pieces become a blend of East and West, reflecting her own background.
Swirling red, pink, and gray; clouds, bits of dragon bodies, blossoming trees, and wind. On the left, the words "impure thoughts / but paintings impure / it is the adjustment of impurities / which forges paintings continuity" is written in small, vertical, all-capitals.

Welcome, Colleen!

Hello! I’m Colleen McDermott, and starting this week I’m taking over as the new Brown Post-Baccalaureate Curatorial Fellow.
Image of Colleen smiling in the Cathedral of Saint Denis.

Teaching with Paper

Every afternoon for three weeks, sixteen enthusiastic 4th-6th graders come to the Museum to connect with art. Our students spend time in the galleries, investigate artists in the museum’s collection, and go behind-the-scenes with museum staff.
Young students in the Cunningham Center gallery looking at works of art on tables; from behind.

Introducing SCMA’s IFPDA Intern

We’re pleased to be joined this summer by Nicole Viglini, '04J, who will be working in the Cunningham Center this summer as the IFPDA Intern.
Nicole, sitting at a table in the Cunningham Center gallery with a laptop, smiling at the camera.

Tolman Collection: Hiromitsu Takahashi

Hiromitsu’s beautifully vibrant and slightly playful prints are a modern take on ukiyo-e, a type of Japanese woodblock printing developed during the country’s Edo period.
Kneeling warrior in black robe holding a black and white umbrella aloft in his proper right hand.

Never Exhausted

Over the course of his life, Paul Landacre became a master of wood engraving, and a standard for those exploring this printmaking medium.
Nude woman with long hair holding onto mane of a rearing black horse, dark clouds in sky, dark spiky grass below horse.

Standing Turk

The French academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme is known for his hyper illusionistic style, which he used to create detailed paintings of life and culture in the newly discovered East during the nineteenth century.
Standing man facing left in coat and turban with hands pressed together at his waist.

Buzkashi from the series Musharraff

An integration of Persian and Indian influences, 'Buzkashi' by Saira Wasim resonates with early Mughal ruler portraits and painting traditions.
man with four arms seated on a cushion surrounded by clowns in uniform carrying an upside-down goat
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