No registration required.
Activities are ongoing at SCMA from 1–3pm.
Join Danielle Carrabino, SCMA’s Curator of Painting and Sculpture, for a first look at the Brought to Life exhibition. Danielle will share an overview of the exhibition highlighting the multisensory history of painted wooden sculpture, and offer insights into the process of the exhibition’s development. Audience members will have the opportunity to ask questions.
Always Been Here: Indigenous Artwork Reemerges from Storage
Isabel Cordova graduated from Smith College in 2019 with a degree in Studio Art, American Studies, and a concentration in Museum Studies. In this post, she reflects on her and Sydney Nguyen’s collaboration with Smith College Museum of Art (SCMA) as the Post-Baccalaureate Assistants for the Indigenous American Collections at Five Colleges Inc.
This post refers to the installation of pieces by Indigenous artists from SCMA’s permanent collection on view in the Art after 1800 America, Europe, Africa Gallery (third level).
Colonial Entanglements: Native American Artwork from the SCMA Collection
August 30, 2022–May 28, 2023
This grouping of fourteen objects highlights the relationship between North American Indigenous artists and artists from the European societies that occupy their homelands.
Brought to Life: Painted Wood Sculpture from Europe, 1300–1700
September 16, 2022–August 6, 2023
This exhibition investigates the materials, techniques and reception of painted wood sculpture in Europe between the 13th and the 18th centuries. Polychrome (multicolored) wood sculptures are today recognized as art objects, but at the time they were made, viewers interacted with the sculptures as if they were alive. Most of the works on view here represent sacred figures from Christianity, and their lifelike appearance was central to their function as objects of prayer and devotion. Whether located in a church or a home, the sculptures were part of a multisensory experience.
Collecting for the future: Taniguchi Shigeru’s Three Colors Paint
Aprile Gallant, Mary Walcott Keyes 1931 Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs and Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs introduces a print by the Japanese artist Taniguchi Shigeru
An Investigation into the Authenticity of SCMA’s Saint Catherine of Alexandria
Julia Bender, a master’s candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in the History of Art and Architecture department, explores the mysterious past of SCMA’s Saint Catherine sculpture.
Collecting for the future: Stefano della Bella
Danielle Carrabino, curator of painting and sculpture, offers insight into a recently acquired print by Italian artist, Stefano della Bella (1610-1664). This print may be the earliest work of art in the collection to feature a Black man.
Collecting for the future: Chen Xin's Pine, Clouds, and Flying Waterfalls
Yao Wu, Jane Chace Carroll Curator of Asian Art, introduces an ink landscape painting made by Chen Xin in 1985 that is currently on view at SCMA on the lower level.
Who made it?
A Chinese artist called Chen Xin painted this landscape. Born in Beijing in 1956, Chen studied with several Chinese classical painting masters in his youth. In the 1980s, he received further training from artists of the Lingnan School, a style of painting from the Guangdong region in southern China.
Chien-Chi Chang: China Town
On View Through June 25, 2023
Chien-Chi Chang's video "China Town" documents the experiences of undocumented workers in New York City's Chinatown and their family members in Fujian, China. An immigrant himself, the artist believes immigration is propelled by both suffering and hope.