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.

landscape with palm trees in the foreground and body of water in the background with light colored sky

Frederic Church 200: Celebrating the Connection between Smith College and Artist Frederic Edwin Church

Julia Sumpter ‘27 is a History and Italian Major and Museums Concentrator.

Collecting the Past: Kenojuak Ashevak

This pencil drawing on wove paper by Kenojuak Ashevak, one of the most well-known modern Inuit artists, represents two human figures encircled by animals and sea deities against a blank background.
man and boy in snow suits between two mermaid-like creatures, with animal and two birds

Collecting the Past: Kannibalen Bioethicists

Enrique Chagoya is currently a professor of Art and Art History at Stanford University, but was born and raised in Mexico City, Mexico.  It was here that he became more aware of ancient indigenous beliefs, imagination, and history.
image of a man in the center, with various drawings above his head and text below that reads, "Abenteuer Der Kannibalen Bioethicists"

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.
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