Curators at Work II presents a new and enlarged version of Curators at Work: 16 Memoranda for the Curatorial Files, a small show in the spring of 2011 that received a popular response. A year ago, many visitors were delighted by the opportunity to discover that the Muscarelle owns original works of art by modern art luminaries like Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine, Man Ray, and Marino Marini. This year’s edition combines the fruits of the research by the students of two semesters of the Museum’s seminar, Curating, Collecting & Connoisseurship [ARTH 330-01 & ARTH 330-06]. On view in the Sheridan […]

A mysterious gold Merovingian ring dating from the onset of the middle ages, ca. 400 to 600, is among the medieval treasures included in , a special loan exhibition In honor of the retirement of medievalist Professor Barbara Watkinson. The ring’s diamond shaped bezel is inset with blue and green glass and set off by a cabochon garnet on all four corners (lent by the Kathleen Durdin collection). The Merovingian kings in Gaul were suppressed by Charlemagne, but their fame as a ‘realm of the rings’ survives even today in legends and literature. Guest curated by William and Mary senior […]

Contemporary artist Kay Jackson portrays Eight Endangered Species using ancient techniques and creative variations on traditional frames. Since the 1990s, Kay Jackson has been quietly paying her respects to disappearing flora and fauna by making icons, one for every species. Their meticulously worked surfaces and gilt carved frames recall the sacred relics of early art. Her works evoke the irony of our readiness to lament environmental damage and our inaction to prevent. Each of the Endangered Species panels, now more than thirty five in all, requires months to produce. Their delicately incised and gilt surfaces are layered and worked with […]

Guest curated by renowned master framer and gilder, William B. Adair, Frames: The Forgotten Art presents a globe-trotting selection of American and European hand-carved frames covering a span of more than five hundred years. The seventeenth-century framers of the Dutch Old Masters preferred dark woods and strong geometric patterns. The grand paintings made for English country houses and Italian baroque churches required magnificent examples of the carver’s and gilder’s art. One of the masterpieces in the exhibition is a towering baroque mirror frame with sculpted figures of gamboling putti on all four sides. This work, which once adorned the entrance […]

Imagine Ding Dong Daddy, Messy Jesse and the Gulf of Sexico gone Day-Glo, side-by-side with fluorescent lithographs printed and embossed like gleaming jewels — the result is an unforgettable Sixties’ show… or, as Jerry Garcia might say, “What a long strange trip” this will be. The Museum is warming up the chilly months with a wild ride of color, humor, and irrepressible creativity in the works of two artists newly added to the Muscarelle collection, William Walmsley (1923-2003) and Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1923-2000). Although they took different paths to artistic eminence in the Sixties, they were both trailblazers in their use […]

In Memory Still: A Kiowa Legacy in Art traces the enduring artistic tradition of American Indian artists, known as the Kiowa Five, from their roots in Plains culture to their lasting influence upon contemporary Native artwork. The exhibition features the renowned 1929 portfolio titled “Kiowa Indian Art,” that received critical acclaim in Europe and the United States. Under the mentorship of University of Oklahoma professor Oscar Jacobson, the Kiowa Five were among the first Native artists to be artistically trained in a university setting. Countering pressures to assimilate into mainstream society, these artists chose to depict aspects of traditional Kiowa […]