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.

Olivia wearing a denim jacket with a bright pink background and framed with flowers.

Summer Curatorial Research Intern: Olivia White ’20 (UMass MA ’25)

As a master’s student in the History of Art & Architecture Department at the University of

Maximón Militar

The enigmatic Maximón, with his taste for alcohol and tobacco, is an unorthodox figure among Guatemalan congregations.
interior, home-made altar with candles, crosses, pictures of saints, older men, flowers, cigarettes, alcohol, Crush soda, cooking pots and a plate of coffee beans

From 'Canyon' to 'Crackerjack': What You See is What You Don’t

Both Rauschenberg's 'Canyon,' the subject of recent public controversy, and 'Crackerjacks,' a 1977 graduate photography portfolio from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in SCMA's permanent collection, position contemporary art as an invitation to interpret.
crackerjack box wrapping paper on one side with list of photographers in portfolio on other side

Tara Donovan

There is an unmistakable magic in Tara Donovan’s work. 'Untitled' is a fairly early experimental two-dimensional work in which Donovan used soap bubbles as drawing tool creating a unique image that captured an ephemeral occurrence.
blue overlapping bubbles on a white field

Whistler's Venice Set

Featuring 20 prints and photographs from the permanent collection, this summer's corridor exhibition 'Image and After-Image' looks at James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s etchings and drypoints alongside the development of photography in the second half of the nineteenth century.
buildings in background connected by a bridge; boat with man in foreground rowing on a canal; Venice canal

Pandora's Box

Master ZBM's print 'Pandora's Box' was a pivotal work for this summer's curatorial SIAMS program students, but this print differs from most representations of Pandora in important ways.
goddess opening ornate carved chest filled with snakes and books; pointing with one hand to her eyes; above her two figures; one floating in a starry sky; another figure seated

Where Do You Put the Emphasis?

Influenced by Zen koans, statements of questions that resist linear thought, Wiley produced images and texts that blur the line between wisdom and whimsy.
brown background; gray and black spheres

Outside the [Box]

Just like Pandora, we wanted our audience to be fascinated by our boxes and to question them - to truly think "outside the [box]."
nineteen students standing in front of a blue wall with white text that says "outside the [box]"

Visiting James Ensor

A couple of years ago I ventured out on a small personal pilgrimage to visit the hometown and gravesite of an artist whom I consider to be one of Belgium’s best; James Ensor.
drawing of soldiers on a battlefield; clouds in the sky above

Diebenkorn's Untitled #25

Diebenkorn embarked on the playing card drawings after his mother, Dorothy Diebenkorn, became severely ill during the early 1980s.
abstract with white background and straight and curving lines in black
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