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Upcoming Exhibitions

Artist in Their Studios
Images from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
September 13 - November 23, 2008

Barnard Artists in Their Studios features 55 vintage photographs of American artists in their studios. From the sumpiously furnished studios of the late nineteenth century to the austere workrooms of the present day, studio spaces have played a dynamic role in the history of American art - not simply reflecting aesthetic visions, but informing them. This look at artists in their studios, through photographs and documents from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, offers a behind-the-scenes view into the life of American artists - their methods and materials, aesthetic influences, artistic personae, and social worlds.

At Left: George Grey Barnard (1863–1938) works on his colossal plaster head Lincoln in Thought, ca. 1916. Ida Tarbell, a Lincoln biographer, watches at the right. Photograph by Underwood & Underwood. George Grey Barnard papers, 1884–1963. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

 

rockwellPicturing Health: Norman Rockwell and the Art of Illustration
Organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum
October 31, 2009- January 31, 2010

The central theme of Picturing Health is, naturally, health and well-being as depicted in art. It explores the doctor/patient relationship, physical fitness, and health and healing through the beloved narratives of Norman Rockwell produced for the Lambert, Upjohn and American Optical Companies in the last century, and now owned by the Pfizer Collection.  In addition to the eleven outstanding original canvases by Rockwell are featured 14 of today’s preeminent illustrators for the pages of Healthy Living, Men’s Health, Newsweek, The New York Times and The New Yorker. Their imagery presents a contemporary perspective on many of the same health-related subjects explored nearly 50 years earlier by Rockwell.

 

 

Our History Through a Lens: Frances Benjamin Johnston’s Photographic Survey of Old Fredericksburg and Falmouth, Virginia
 date to be determined

johnsonGari Melchers Home and Studio, in cooperation with the Fredericksburg Area Museum, will mount concurrent exhibitions featuring the photography of an important American woman in the field, Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952). In 1927 Johnston was granted private local funding to produce a photographic survey of important early buildings, private residences and gardens, and vernacular architecture in the City of Fredericksburg and Stafford County, Virginia, as well as important sites further afield. The outcome of her efforts, 247 images, was publicly displayed in May of 1929 in the Town Hall, the present day Fredericksburg Area Museum.  Eighty years later, and after many of those structures have been lost to decay or demolition, the two museums will recreate Johnston’s show, although on a smaller scale. Through loans from the Library of Congress and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Fredericksburg Area Museum will showcase a selection of images representing city properties, while Gari Melchers Home and Studio will display images Johnston captured at Belmont in Falmouth and elsewhere in Stafford County.