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.
Welcome Museum Education Fellow Chaia Leibowitz!
Hi, I’m Chaia (she/they) and I will be working as the Sacerdote Post-Baccalaureate Fellow in Museum Education.
Spinning Diana
When art handlers at the SCMA moved Saint-Gaudens’s Diana of the Tower (1899), they discovered an unexpected quirk of the sculpture: it spins. But why does this American statue of a Roman goddess twirl on its base? Guest blogger Matt Blanchard examines this intriguing sculpture, and the reason why it moves.
Installing Maya Lin’s Sculpture in Neilson Library
Nikolas Asikis, Chief Preparator, shares the process of installing Along the Cappawonganick (Mill River), a sculpture by Maya Lin created specifically for the renovated Neilson Library.
New Acquisition: Saloua Raouda Choucair
Curator of Contemporary Art Emma Chubb discusses sculptor Saloua Raouda Choucair's Dual, a recent acquisition on view in SCMA Then\Now\Next.
Collecting 101: acquisition of Deborah Jack’s ‘the water between us remembers, so we wear this history on our skin, long for a sea-bath and hope the salt will cure what ails us’
SCMA has acquired Deborah Jack’s single-channel video ‘the water between us remembers, so we wear this history on our skin, long for a sea-bath and hope the salt will cure what ails us’ (2018) with the input and effort of students in Collecting 101.
Returning to the SCMA Galleries
Ariella Heise ‘22 recounts her first visit to SCMA since the galleries closed a year ago.
"Dante Day" is March 25
Danielle Carrabino is the Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Smith College Museum of Art.
Divine Nature: Two Dutch landscapes side by side, part II
Henriette Kets de Vries discusses two paired Dutch landscape paintings from the Then\Now\Next exhibition. This week, part two with two of Mondrian's landscapes.
Shinoda Tōkō (1913–2021)
We are saddened to acknowledge the March 1 death of the pioneering artist Shinoda Tōkō, regarded by many as the most important woman artist in Japan.
Where are all the Women Artists?
In honor of Women’s History month and International Women’s Day (March 8), this blog identifies four recent acquisitions of historic art by women: Lavinia Fontana, Elisabetta Sirani, Amile-Ursule Guillebaud, and Maria Ellenrieder. It also examines why SCMA, like most museums, lacks art by women.
Divine Nature: Two Dutch painted landscapes side by side, part I
Henriette Kets de Vries discusses two paired Dutch landscape paintings from the Then\Now\Next exhibition. This week, part one with Jan van Goyen's Landscape View Of Rijnland (1647).
The Year of the Ox
Yao Wu is SCMA’s Jane Chace Carroll Curator of Asian Art. As we enter the Lunar New Year of the Ox, she calls out anti-Asian racism that has escalated drastically in this pandemic.
From Home: An Interview with Camille Bacon ’21
Camille Bacon ’21 speaks about her experience seeing ‘Black Refractions’ at SCMA last year, the upcoming event she is organizing to bring Kimberly Drew ’12, Thelma Golden ’87, Jenna Wortham, and Amanda Williams together virtually, and her honors thesis exploring the expectations of Black artists and Black art.
