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Exhibitions

Now Showing

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

The Muscleman Regular museum admission fees ($10 for adults; $5 for students 6-18) will include entrance to “Picturing Health.” However, Free Passes, Senior, AAA, Group and other discounts will not apply during the dates of this exhibition. Admission is free for Friends of Belmont and UMW staff and students.

At left, The Muscleman, 1941, by Norman Rockwell, oil on canvas, display advertisement for The Upjohn Company, Collection of Pfizer Inc

Read the Free Lance-Star article.
Check out the Norman Rockwell article in Vanity Fair.

One of the most successful visual communicators of the twentieth century, Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) was a keen observer of human nature.  Created over six decades, his carefully conceived narrative for the masses gave voice to the ideals and aspirations of real people and served as a reassuring guide during an era of sweeping social and technological change.

“Picturing Health:  Norman Rockwell and the Art of Illustration” features 11original paintings by Normal Rockwell from the collection of Pfizer Inc, which are among the finest examples of the artist’s advertising imagery.  Norman Rockwell’s paintings explore the doctor/patient relationship, health and healing across generations, and the importance of physical fitness.

In addition to the outstanding Rockwell canvases are featured 14 of today’s preeminent illustrators from the pages of Healthy Living, Men’s Health, Newsweek, The New York Times and The New Yorker. Their art work presents a contemporary perspective on many of the same health-related subjects explored nearly 50 years earlier by Rockwell.

Several related public events and programs are planned in conjunction with “Picturing Health.”

On Sunday, December 13, from 10-5, a Family Health and Art Day will feature health care professionals providing hearing and vision screenings and information about balanced nutrition and healthy lifestyles.  Art activities will focus on Norman Rockwell’s style and subjects and will be geared towards children 6-12.  All activities, and entrance to the exhibition, are included with the price of museum admission.  Family Health and Art Day is sponsored by Kaiser Permanente.

On Tuesday, January 19, a luncheon featuring Stephanie Plunkett, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Norman Rockwell Museum, will be held in the Studio Pavilion.  The cost of the luncheon is $35 ($25 for Friends of Belmont) and will include admission to the exhibition. The luncheon is sponsored by UMW Dining Services.  Reservations are required. Contact Betsy Labar at 540 654-1848.

Later the same evening, January 19, Stephanie Plunkett will present an illustrated talk, “Norman Rockwell: Picturing America” as part of the University of Mary Washington’s Chappell Lecture Series: Great Lives.  The free talk will be held at 7:30 pm in UMW’s Dodd Auditorium.

Picturing Health: Norman Rockwell and the Art of Illustration is organized and curated by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and is sponsored by Pfizer, Inc. For over 158 years, Pfizer has been working to help people live longer, healthier lives.

Major local finding is provided by MediCorp Health System, the Melchers Advisory Council Exhibition Fund and the Stafford County Department of Economic Development and Tourism.

Additional support by Kaiser Permanente; Dr. and Mrs. Samuel C. Smart; Fredericksburg Orthopedic Associates, P.C.; UMW Dining Services; and Dominion Foundation.

 

publication coverGari Melchers Highlighted in Dutch Utopia: American Artists in Holland, 1880-1914

Now showing at the Telfair Museum in Savannah, GA

Dutch Utopia: American Artists in Holland, 1880-1914 is organized by the Telfair Museum of Art in association with the Singer Laren Museum. Accompanied by a major scholarly catalogue, the show will travel to the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, the Grand Rapids Art Museum, and the Singer Laren Museum in the Netherlands after its debut in Savannah.

Encompassing over seventy works drawn from public and private collections throughout the United States and Europe, Dutch Utopia: American Artists in Holland, 1880-1914 examines the work of forty-three American painters drawn to Holland during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Dutch Utopia includes works by artists who remain celebrated today, such as Robert Henri, William Merritt Chase, John Twachtman, and John Singer Sargent, along with painters admired in their own time but less well-known now, including accomplished women like Elizabeth Nourse and Anna Stanley, as well as George Hitchcock, Gari Melchers, and Walter MacEwen, who built international reputations with salon pictures of Dutch landscapes and costumed figures. These artists were among hundreds of Americans who traveled to the Netherlands between 1880 and 1914 to paint and to study. Some lived in Holland for decades, while others stayed only a week or two; but most passed quickly through the major cities to small rural communities, where they created picturesque idylls on canvas.

Read our press release

Read what the press has to say about Dutch Utopia

Listen to the Dutch Utopia Audio Tour

Upcoming

William H. Johnson: An American Modern
September 10, 2011 through December 4, 2011

still life

William H. Johnson: An American Modern explores the intricate layers of Johnson's diverse cultural perspective as an artist and self-described "primitive and cultured painter." Through 20 expressionist and vernacular landscapes, still life paintings, and portraits, the exhibition positions the artist's aesthetic within the context of modernism. Johnson's visual vocabulary disguised the complexity of his approach. The exhibition situates the artist as a pivotal figure in the canon of modern American art.

William H. Johnson: An American Modern, an exhibition developed by Morgan State University and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, is made possible through the partial support of the Henry Luce Foundation.