Works by Degas in this exhibition consisted of drawings, prints, photographs, monotypes, one sculpture, and a letter, all from a single private collection. The collection endeavored to illuminate the background and personality of Edgar Degas the man, as well as to present his genius as an artist. The subject matter of these works by Degas is often quite personal. In addition to three rare self-portraits, the collection includes depictions of close family members, his loyal housekeeper Sabine Neyt, and multiple portraits of artists Édouard Manet and Mary Cassatt. Edgar Degas: The Private Impressionist highlighted the artist’s interests and individual methods […]

The new World Trade Center is a space of remembering and healing, as well as a tribute to life and art. This place serves as a memorial designed to honor people and commemorate heroes and connects the past and the future to the present through architecture. The buildings and spaces designed by Daniel Libeskind, Michael Arad, David Childs, and Santiago Calatrava function as channels to find new purpose and peace after the attacks on September 11, 2001. Forever Marked By The Day pays homage to those architects, artists, designers, and photographers who made creativity triumph over destruction.  

Shared Ideologies, an exhibition of selected works by Native American artists from the 1970s to the present will offer visitors an opportunity to engage in a sociopolitical dialogue about the space between history and memory. Paintings and works on paper by artists such as the late T.C. Cannon (Kiowa, 1946 – 1978), Emmi Whitehorse (Navajo, born 1957), Cara Romero (Chemeheuvi, born 1977), Tom Poolaw (Kiowa/Delaware, born 1959), Julie Buffalohead (Ponca, born 1972) and several others, transcend the two-dimensional artwork by their elders that came to define Native American art. Shared Ideologies invites non-Native viewers into a dialogue with indigenous artists […]

The expression of motion within the still life of black and white photography embodies the curious nature of forms that are simultaneously static and dynamic. Through a conversation between art and science, this installation of recent acquisitions in photography considers the motion of life as a process in natural and built environments and seeks to explore simplistic and entropic experiences. Developed by a team of undergraduate students nominated by faculty for their combined interest in art and science, these images represent their intersectional interest and serve as a visual representation between the interplay of art and science. Curated by Macy […]

This exhibition—The Art of Well-Being—did not attempt to define either art or well-being. Rather it presented a range of works from the collection of the Muscarelle Museum of Art selected to explore those ideas. The exhibition had five sections—individual; kin; community; natural world; and art-making. Individually and in groups, the paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and other media shown expressed the needs, pleasures, desires, and aspirations of individuals, communities, and the wider world. At the same time the works chosen evoked the web of connections among these perspectives, whether providing a space for quiet contemplation or a call to action; freedom […]

Looking is a very complex process—nearly as complex as seeing. It requires that we let go of what we know, so we can open ourselves to what we see. Or, as American artist Robert Irwin said, “Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees.” Works of art are never merely mimetic representations, but rather entities in their own right. A visual language gives art its power regardless of whether or not we can name the thing we are looking at. Works of art always involve aspects of abstraction. To this extent, the notion of representation is false. What […]

Curated by the nine William & Mary students in Professor Xin Conan-Wu’s class The Curatorial Project, Scales of Chaos: The Dance of Art & Contemporary Science presented fresh ways of reading art, and of artworks that embody a sensible intuition of complex phenomena. Scales of Chaos: The Dance of Art & Contemporary Science was originally scheduled to open on April 17 in our first floor Sheridan gallery. Professor Conan-Wu and the students in The Curatorial Project quickly adapted after the university’s suspension of in-person instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They accomplished all curatorial tasks, recorded videos discussing the featured works […]

American Vision: A Tribute to Carroll Owens, Jr. was originally scheduled to run from February 8 through April 7, 2020. In light of current conditions the Museum has extended the exhibition through January 10, 2021. The Muscarelle Museum of Art is a fortunate beneficiary of The Owens Foundation here at William & Mary. The Foundation was created and facilitated by Carroll Owens, Jr., W&M ‘62 and his wife, Patrisia B. Owens, W&M ’62. The Owens Foundation generously provides support to departments on the campus as well as awarding the Monroe scholarship to one undergraduate student per class. One of the […]