Archive

January 24, 2024 - February 29, 2024
Stryker Center located at 412 N Boundary St, Williamsburg, VA 23185

The Muscarelle Museum of Art is proud to present an exhibition of student photography submitted as part of a competition held in the fall semester of 2023. Juried by Cuban artist and photographer Adrián Fernández, this exhibition will feature photographic works by currently enrolled students at William & Mary from diverse disciplines.  “In today's globalized society, photography is one of the most immediate forms of artistic expression. As our world becomes smaller, more interconnected, diverse, fast-paced and chaotic, photography continues to be the medium of choice that reflects this complex reality and provides us with an accessible means of expression and interpretation,” says Fernández.

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February 9, 2024 - May 18, 2024
The Daily Grind, lodge adjacent to William & Mary Sadler Center

We are pleased to partner once again with Professor of Art Elizabeth Mead and Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences Jennifer Stevens on the exhibition Nascent Themes From a Conversation of Fragments: Recent Collages by Clive Knights.

November 3, 2023 - November 28, 2023
Andrews Gallery, Andrews Hall

The Art History Fall 2023 Curatorial Project presents "Face to Face: Across Spaces and Places" on view November 3 – 28, 2023 in Andrews Gallery. This exhibition examines representations of people, either as portraits or imagined images created by artists of their subjects.

August 21, 2023 - November 3, 2023
Stryker Center, 412 N. Boundary Street

As we celebrate 40 years since our founding in 1983, explore the story of art at the Muscarelle and William & Mary.

November 14, 2022 - December 5, 2022
Andrews Gallery, Andrews Hall

The Art History Fall '22 Curatorial Project presents "Carving Deep: J J Lankes' American Story" on view November 14 – December 5 in Andrews Gallery. This exhibition has been curated by students in The Curatorial Project, under the direction of Professor Cristina Stancioiu.

September 30, 2022 - December 11, 2022
Muscarelle Museum of Art, Sheridan Gallery

Recent works of William & Mary’s studio art faculty, including visiting instructors and emeriti professors, will be featured in the exhibition Faculty Show 15 on view from September 30 through December 11, 2022.  This exhibition will highlight the diverse talents of the William & Mary studio instructors in a variety of media including ceramics, drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, and sculpture.

Learn more about the upcoming Martha Wren Briggs Center for The Visual Arts, the new home for the Muscarelle Museum of Art, through our new exhibition detailing the project in the Spigel Gallery. The presentation includes images, drawings, floor plans, and a model—all designed to give visitors a detailed glimpse of our future!

February 18, 2022 - April 10, 2022
Sheridan Gallery

Spark of Imagination celebrated the ingenuity of American self-trained artists and their individual impulses to create. Along with special loans, the exhibition featured new acquisitions on view for the first time including works by Clementine Hunter, Helen LaFrance, Sister Gertrude Morgan, and Grandma Moses.

April 15, 2022 - September 25, 2022
Sheridan Gallery

This exhibition demonstrates Leonard Baskin’s use of the body as a vehicle for reflection, highlighting themes of mortality and morality in the natural world. Part of a required practicum course for Art History majors, The Curatorial Project (ARTH 331), was directed by Charles Palermo, Professor of Art History.

February 12, 2022 - May 29, 2022
Muscarelle Museum of Art, Cheek, Graves & Burns Galleries

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.

Press Release

September 10, 2021 - January 23, 2022
Muscarelle Museum of Art, Cheek, Graves & Burns Galleries

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.

September 1, 2021 - February 13, 2022
Muscarelle Museum of Art, Sheridan & Spigel Galleries

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.

April 9, 2021 - August 8, 2021
Spigel Gallery, Muscarelle Museum of Art

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.

April 16, 2021 - August 22, 2021
Cheek, Graves & Burns Galleries

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.

October 16, 2020 - August 8, 2021
Sheridan Gallery, Muscarelle Museum of Art

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.

September 23, 2020 - April 11, 2021
Muscarelle Museum of Art, Cheek, Graves & Burns Galleries

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.

November 6, 2019 - January 26, 2020
Muscarelle Museum of Art, Sheridan and Spigel Galleries

This exhibition marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first documented African slaves in Colonial Virginia that, while part of the greater narrative of slavery in the Americas, helped to set into motion the ongoing repercussions of this historical event.

Press Release

Additional Documentation

February 8, 2020 - April 4, 2021
Muscarelle Museum of Art, Spigel Gallery

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.

February 8, 2020 - October 11, 2020
Muscarelle Museum of Art, Sheridan Gallery

In Focus was originally scheduled to run from February 8 through April 7, 2020. In light of current conditions the Museum has extended the exhibition through October 11, 2020. The Museum strives to build the collection in meaningful and strategic ways, including a commitment to inclusivity and representation.

October 4, 2019 - October 27, 2019
Muscarelle Museum of Art, Sheridan and Spigel Galleries

Faculty Show 14  highlighted the diverse talents of the William & Mary studio instructors and emeritus professors in a variety of media including drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics and installation art.

Press Release

August 27, 2019 - September 27, 2019
Muscarelle Museum of Art, Sheridan and Spigel Galleries

This exhibition considered neuro-aesthetics and brought first-hand experiential interaction with contemporary abstract works from a distinguished group of living artists composed of Michelle Benoit, Phil Chang, Stefan Chinov, Jaynie Crimmins, Sara Dochow, Diane Englander, Pamela Farrell, Karen Fitzgerald, Helen O’Leary, Lorraine Tady, Jo Volley and Susan York.

Press Release

May 1, 2019 - June 17, 2019
Stryker Center, Williamsburg Regional Library

Sankofa is an Adinkra symbol from Ghana, which translates as "to look into one's past in order to move forward." Sankofa: Looking Back, Moving Forward was composed of drawings and prints by artist Steve Prince.

April 5, 2019 - June 6, 2019
Muscarelle Museum of Art, Sheridan and Spigel Galleries

This spring, William & Mary students curated this exhibition as part of a required practicum course for Art History majors called The Curatorial Project (ARTH 331).

February 10, 2018 - May 13, 2018

Michelangelo Merisi called Caravaggio (Italian, 1571-1610), had an enormous influence on Baroque art with his dramatic use of light and emotive realism. 

February 10, 2018 - March 18, 2018
Muscarelle Museum of Art

The Muscarelle Museum of Art is proud to present Women With Vision: Masterworks from the Permanent Collection in conjunction with William & Mary's 100 Years of Women celebration.

Press Release

February 10 – May 13, 2018 We are proud to present Guerrilla Girls: Conscience of the Art World in the Herman Graphic Arts Room as part of the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of coeducation at William & Mary and in Virginia.

September 2, 2017 - December 10, 2017
Muscarelle Museum of Art

A survey of the artist's work representing an extraordinary fifty-year career.  Eversley, trained as an engineer, began making his polyester resin sculptures with an aim to “create kinetic art without using kinetic elements such as mechanical movement or artificial light changes.”

Press Release

September 2, 2017 – January 14, 2018 Building on the Legacy: African American Art from the Permanent Collection is comprised of more than thirty paintings, drawings, works on paper and sculptures by some of this country's most renowned artists.

April 21 – August 13, 2017 In Chinese philosophy and ancient legend, Scholars’ rocks were viewed as “the bones of the earth”. Since the Song dynasty (960–1279), these natural sculptures have been regarded as artifacts of the sacred relationship between man and nature and described in folklore as otherworldly. Collectors of these stones use them for contemplation and inspiration.

February 11 - August 13, 2017 The Art and Science of Connoisseurship explores the creative narrative behind six paintings attributed to Agnolo Bronzino, Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni, Peter Paul Rubens, Peter Lely, and Paul Cézanne.

May 6 – August 13, 2017 This exhibition represents a celebration and first public showing of an outstanding collection of Chinese art recently donated to the Muscarelle Museum of Art.

February 11, 2017 - April 5, 2017

The restless genius of Sandro Botticelli (Florence, 1445-1510) is explored in depth in the most important Botticelli exhibition ever seen in the United States.

February 11 – May 21, 2017 Unpublished and on view for the first time, these letters are an important new resource for research and scholarship, providing viewers with a unique, inside glimpse of the man who served as President of the United States from 1817 to 1825.

February - August 2017 Thomas Jefferson’s Honorary Degree , from collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society, is the only diploma Jefferson received from his alma mater and confers upon him “gladly and eagerly of the degree of doctor in the civil law.

September 10 through December 2, 2016 Hosted every three years by museums across the U.S., the American Society of Marine Artists (ASMA) holds a juried competition for the best in contemporary marine art.

September 10, 2016 through January 8, 2017    Due to the inclement weather, the Muscarelle will be closed this weekend. We regret that January 6 will be the last day to come and see "Building the Brafferton" exhibition.  However, stay tuned for a forthcoming online version and exhibition catalogue.

April 16 – August 14, 2016 The Muscarelle Museum of Art is pleased to announce the North American premiere of Museumscopes: Photography by Massimo Pacifico,  a colorful exhibition on the surprising theme that laughter, tears, sleeping and dancing happen every day – even in museums.

April 16 through August 14, 2016 Our signature series, Curators at Work, returns in its sixth installment and features significant works from the permanent collection as well as exciting recent acquisitions. This annual exhibition provides the opportunity for undergraduate students from the College of William & Mary to serve as curators under the direction of Dr. John T.

February 6, 2016— April 10, 2016 From Eadweard Muybridge's 19th-century photographic studies of animal locomotion to Richard Misrach's contemporary chromogenic prints, Light Works  explores the history of photography. Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Curtis, Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon and many other celebrated photographers are highlighted in this exhibition.

September 12, 2015 - January 17, 2016 Recent works of the teaching studio art faculty including visiting instructors and emeriti professors of The College of William & Mary are featured in Faculty Show 13.  This exhibition encompasses a variety of media including ceramics, drawing, painting, photography, printmaking and sculpture.

May 2 – August 30, 2015 This exhibition is the culmination of the Curating, Collecting and Connoisseurship seminar taught under the tutelage of Dr. John T. Spike.  Fifth in the series, students have the opportunity to step into the role of exhibition curators as they select prints and drawings from the permanent collection.

The Muscarelle Museum of Art, in its first collaboration with the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William & Mary is pleased to present Matilda of Canossa and the Origins of the Renaissance.  This is the first monographic exhibition in the United States ever dedicated to Matilda, one of the great leaders and women of the Middle Ages.

April 25, 2015 – January 17, 2016 On view through January 2016, Twilight of a Golden Age: Florentine Painting after the Renaissance, Masterworks from the Haukohl Family Collection provides the opportunity to see some of the finest examples of paintings and objects from the Florentine Baroque period.

February 6, 2016 — August 21, 2016 Hiroshige’s 53 Stations of the Tokaido  explores the most traveled road in old Japan with fresh eyes. This exhibition presents five distinct complete sets of Hiroshige’s The 53 Stations of the Tokaido Road never before displayed together.

February 6, 2016 - April 21, 2016
Muscarelle Museum of Art

On loan from the National Scouting Museum in Irving, Texas, are nine paintings by Rockwell (1894-1978), famed for his nostalgic and patriotic depictions of 20th-century American life.

Press Release

Organized by the Muscarelle Museum of Art, this unprecedented selection of more than twenty-five masterpiece drawings by Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo from Italian museums is the first exhibition to explore Leonardo’s philosophy of beauty as contrasted with his rival Michelangelo.

October 17, 2014 — February 8, 2015 This exhibition celebrates the work of renowned Japanese printmaker Toshi Yoshida exploring the artist’s process, as well as his international travels.

February 8, 2014 — January 11, 2015 This exhibition highlights the idea of the beauty of nature in art, a key theme of 19th-century American landscape painters. Generously lent from the Owens Foundation, works by Thomas Cole, Robert Henri and Edward Potthast are among the artists represented.

February 8, 2014 — January 11, 2015 The paintings and watercolors in this exhibition were commissioned by the Federal Arts Project (1935—1943), a sector of the Works Progress Administration that promoted the creation of hundreds of thousands of works of art around the country for display in schools, libraries, and other public buildings.

February 8, 2014 — February 8, 2015 This exhibition is comprised of a selection of European landscapes, portraits and religious images, from the Baroque and Renaissance periods. The paintings come from the permanent collection and loans from Thomas D. Dossett and Associates and The Lauro Collection.

April 29, 2014 — February 8, 2015 Kabuki (its name comprised of the Kanji characters for “sing”, “dance”, and “skill”) is a form of Japanese theatre known for its elaborate costumes, striking makeup, and intricate choreography. The ancient celebration of the beautiful and the bizarre is immortalized in this exhibition of Kabuki theatre woodcuts from the permanent collection.

April 29, 2014 — February 8, 2015 This collection of etchings, by the 17th-century French printmaker Jacques Callot, represents a significant acquisition for the Museum.  A variety of series that Callot completed over his career are on view, including a pristine impression of one of his best-known works, the etching of Saint Amond.

Guest curated by Kathryn H. Floyd, visiting instructor at the College of William & Mary, 21st Century Diplomacy featured more than four dozen images of culture, politics and war captured by photographers affiliated with the global affairs magazine Diplomatic Courier as well as William & Mary students.

This is the fourth installment of our Curators at Work exhibition series.  The exhibition which runs from April 19, 2014 — May 18, 2014, will focus on new acquisitions to the permanent collection.  As in past years, this show will be curated by the Muscarelle's own Assistant Director & Chief Curator Dr. John T.

February 8 to April 6, 2014, visitors coming to the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William & Mary will have a rare opportunity to view three famous paintings by, or attributed to, Caravaggio and take sides in an intense debate among the world’s leading authorities on Italian paintings.

The Muscarelle Museum of Art will host Glenn Close: A Life in Costume, featuring selections from Close's personal costume collection.

More than twenty contemporary artists will be represented in the upcoming exhibition In Tandem: Established and Emerging Contemporary Artists from the Permanent Collection, September 29, 2013 — January 12, 2014. This multi- generational show includes works from the 1950s until the present by leading and emergent artists working in a variety of media and styles.

Curators at Work III: New Acquisitions, on view April 26 to May 26, 2013, will display a number of masterpieces that have been newly acquired for the permanent collection. The show will span seven consecutive centuries of art and a variety of media.

Organized by the Muscarelle Museum of Art, Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane Masterpiece Drawings from the Casa Buonarroti will open February 9 and be on view through April 14, 2013.  This landmark exhibition is being organized in honor of the 30th anniversary of the foundation of the Muscarelle Museum of Art in 1983.

Paintings from North American collections in honor of the 400th anniversary of his birth.

Works of the teaching studio art faculty including visiting instructors and emeriti professors at William & Mary were featured in an exhibition at the Muscarelle Museum of Art from October 27, 2012 through January 6, 2013.

August 18, 2012 - October 7, 2012 The vases in this exhibition, from Virginia collections, were selected to display not only a variety of subjects and shapes, but also the principal techniques used to decorate them.

William D. Barnes: Three Decades of Still Life and Landscape, was an exhibition of paintings and monotypes by Professor William Barnes – on view from April 14 to June 24, 2012. Barnes retired from the Department of Art and Art History at William & Mary after thirty-seven years of dedicated teaching and mentoring students in the field of painting.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Muscarelle Museum of Art solemnly hosts an exhibition of seventeen paintings capturing the journey of a mother coping with the loss of her child. On September 9, 2010, Jeanne Weaver’s son, 1Lt. Todd W. Weaver, W&M `08 was killed in action in Afghanistan.

The Muscarelle Museum of Art first opened its doors in 1983, but The College of William & Mary began acquiring art centuries earlier, in 1732, when the Third Earl of Burlington donated to The College a portrait of English physicist Sir Robert Boyle.

Merging Souls: Arts of Devotion in Latin America illuminates the rich visual and material cultures of the southern regions of the Americas from the pre-Hispanic and colonial periods to the present day.

The profound art of American photojournalist W. Eugene Smith and his wife Aileen M. Smith is the subject of an upcoming exhibition at the Muscarelle Museum of Art. Unbearable Beauty: The Triumph of the Human Spirit consists of photographs from Smith’s “Minamata Series,” which brought to world attention the horrors of mercury poisoning.

The 3rd Annual Developing World Gallery exhibition co-curated by IRC CARES and the Muscarelle Museum of Art is currently on display in the Museum’s Annex at the Sadler Center. Featured in the exhibition are photographs taken by students while traveling or studying in developing countries. Out of over 800 photo submissions, sixty pictures were chosen for the exhibition.

One of the most famous artists in the history of the world, Michelangelo Buonarroti is known for his iconic works such as the Sistine Chapel and the sculpture David. Without a doubt, however, the rare and infrequently seen drawings of this Renaissance artist are among the most treasured in the world.

Warhol, fascinated by contradictions, famously said, “I am a deeply superficial person.

The Muscarelle Museum of Art solemnly hosts an exhibition of seventeen paintings capturing the journey of a mother coping with the loss of her child. On September 9, 2010, Jeanne Weaver’s son, 1Lt. Todd W. Weaver, W&M `08 was killed in action in Afghanistan.

In the mid-17th century, Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664) and his circle increasingly produced paintings for a colonial market. The series of Twelve Sibyls, on view from August 4, 2009 through November 1, 2009, is a fascinating example of the paintings that were shipped overseas to decorate churches and public spaces in Lima, Quito, and other cities.

Works of the Studio Art faculty of The College of William & Mary will be featured at the Muscarelle Museum of Art from September 5, 2009 to October 25, 2009. This unique exhibition is a long-standing tradition at William & Mary, and a collaboration between the Art and Art History Department and the Muscarelle Museum of Art.

Tiffany Glass: “A Riot of Color” is the only exhibition in Hampton Roads 2009 Art of Glass festival that will be devoted to the Art Nouveau glass of Tiffany. The Muscarelle Museum of Art presents Tiffany Glass: “A Riot of Color,” an exhibition of the finest Tiffany glass on view from April 18, 2009 to July 12, 2009.

This exhibition is a collaboration between the Museum and the Women’s Studies Program, the American Studies Program, and the Department of Art and Art History (Prof. Susan Webster) at The College of William & Mary. Support was provided by the Margaret Gove Foundation through the Women’s Studies Program.

Photographer Octavio Kano-Galván’s initiation into art began when he was six years old at the Taller infantil de artes plásticas in Mexico City. He completed his undergraduate degree in Fine Arts at the Escuela de Artes Plásticos (UNAM) in conjunction with a degree in mechanical engineering.

The Muscarelle Museum of Art is pleased to be the first venue to kick off the national tour of The Dutch Italianates: Seventeenth-Century Masterpieces from Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, an exhibition presenting views of the Italian landscape of the seventeenth-century as seen through the eyes of some of the most accomplished Dutch artists of the Golden Age.

in conjunction with University Center Activities Board, Cultural and Contemporary Events Program: Paul Taggart is a photojournalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, and National Geographic.

The Museum is pleased to have on temporary loan, selected highlights from the private collection of George W. Roper, II. It includes a wonderful portrait of the Duke of Montfoort by Jan Mierevelt, a Delft portraitist of the early seventeenth century known for his refined technique. There is also a beautiful portrait by Thomas Sully of Mrs. Yates Levy.

October 21, 1983 - October 23, 2011
Muscarelle Museum of Art