The Wilson Museum actively collects art in support of our core mission as a teaching museum. Since opening in 2004, we have added hundreds of items to our collection and only a fraction has been on public view. Hidden Treasures features works in a variety of media including work by Carrie Mae Weems, Ron Kleeman, Lizzie Nungarday, and Kay Ross.

Frederick Sommer (1905 – 1999) was a master artist whose work influenced generations of photographers. Often recognized for his elegant black-and-white photographs with distinctive images of surrealist collages, horizonless landscapes, out-of-focus nudes, and cameraless abstractions. Sommer also maintained lifelong interests in drawing, painting, collage, poetry, and prose. Using a variety of media to experiment with figure and shape, he created an unusually diverse body of work a portion of which will be on view in this exhibition that examines more than fifty years of his work organized collaboratively by the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum and the Frederick and Frances Sommer Foundation.

New Mexico-based artist Holly Roberts begins with photographs to produce multi-media expressions of human drama. Described as “kind but unflinching,” she creates pieces which are equally sweet and complex. Deeply influenced by Native American figures and spirituality, Roberts’ work reflects the questions and ambiguities of daily life, leading the viewer to apply her art to their own life. Roberts graduated with her M.F.A. from Arizona State University and has received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Bill White, Professor of Art, spent the fall of 2006 living and working in Kent, England while on a sabbatical leave from Hollins, funded by a Cabell Grant. The works exhibited were painted “en plein air” at varied locations in the fields around the small village of Hastingleigh. The quintessential landscapes show herds of black-faced sheep, the mercurial weather, and the soft light of England where one minute the sky is clear and the next the clouds scutter by, bringing rain. White received his M.F.A. from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, and has had solo exhibits in New York City, Philadelphia, and throughout Virginia.

Please join us for a one-day celebration of photography featuring the exhibitions of Frederick Sommer and Holly Roberts. Presentations include Hollins University Professor of Art History Kim Rhodes, 2008 Frances Niederer Artist-in-Residence Holly Roberts, New York-based artist/photographer Lori Nix, and more. This event is sponsored by the Art Department with support from the Cynthia Andrews Fund and presented in conjunction with the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum.

Showcasing a variety of media and styles, Women Only! features a new canon of modern artists. All of these women share a relentless focus and the courage to embrace uncharted territories. Each artist is an innovator of compelling power, whether working in painting, photography, or even quilts or videos. Featured artists include Jennifer Bartlett, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Camille Billops, Elizabeth Catlett, Linda Freeman, Ann Hamilton, Grace Hartigan, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Elizabeth Murray, Howardena Pindell, Laurie Simmons, Faith Ringgold, Miriam Schapiro, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Joan Snyder, Pat Steir, Gail Tremblay, Jackie Winsor and Flo Oy Wong.

This exhibition features the work of the members of the class of 2008 majoring in studio art and film & photography: Olivia Page Body, Casey Ann Bridgers, Kristin Bringewatt, Keri “Sssargon” Cheely, Keely Comstock, Pamela Marie Cruz, Meg Graninger, Stephanie Lohmann, E. Ogier, Shannon Sarkozy, Mary Celeste Townsend, Sarah Triplett, Sherry Tucciarone, Ashley Lenore Walther, Racheal W. Yang, and Stacy D. Zimmerman.

Diana Reuter-Twining is a sculptor whose work is steeped in the genre of art known as animalier, the French term for “animal art.” Living in Virginia and traveling worldwide affords her the opportunity to catalogue the nature that is so vital to her work. As an architect and artist, Reuter-Twining is keenly aware of the plasticity of space. Her bronze sculptures are dynamic and have the vantage point of an intimacy with nature that could only be captured through experience.

Taisie Berkeley has won national recognition for her magazine profiles of people. In her photo essays, she brings emotion, perceptiveness, and grace to her art. While traveling in India on a Fulbright grant, she documented the day-to-day lives and struggles of Indian women. These photographs and their accompanying text reveal Berkeley's sympathy for their plight. She received her M.F.A. from the University of Delaware and currently teaches photography at the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland.

Curated from the private collections of southwest Virginia pottery enclave 16 Hands, this exhibition features the work of many of the most influential artists in contemporary clay. Included is one piece by each of the nationally renowned potters of 16 Hands, so that we can see their work in the context of that which inspires them. The members of 16 Hands, Silvie Granatelli, Ellen Shankin, Brad Warstler, Stacy Synder, Richard Hensley, and Donna Polseno live in southwest Virginia and recently celebrated their tenth anniversary of organized studio tours.

Taking a cue from the 16th century Northern European still-life painting tradition, this exhibition explores the subject of vanitas, a reminder of the transient nature of vanity and youth. Prints in particular were created for mass distribution and the nature of the medium renders them notoriously impermanent. These contemporary works from the James W. Hyams Collection explore, exploit, or relate to the impermanence of life and our culture's obsession with beauty. Hyams is a noted collector whose exhibition of photorealist prints traveled extensively throughout the southeast.

Purdue University Galleries hold a biennial competition of small-scale contemporary printmaking. Over the years, the Galleries have acquired more than 160 artworks from these competitions. Sixty of these prints have traveled to the Wilson Museum, and each piece is no larger than sixty square inches. Works range from delicate etchings to wildly colorful works on paper and represent some of the best up-and-coming printmakers working today. 60x60 was developed by the Purdue University Galleries, West Lafayette, Indiana.

One of the pioneers in the postmodern genres in his blending of classical and new realism in painting, Larry Day (1921-1998) was a professor of painting, drawing, and theory at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) in Pennsylvania. He was also senior critic at University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Fine Arts. His work has been the focus of numerous exhibitions nationally and abroad and his works are in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., among others. In 2004, a selection of Day's drawings and paintings were added to the Wilson Museum's permanent collection through the generosity of his widow Ruth Fine. This exhibition, showcasing the entire gift, is curated by Hollins University Professor of Art Bill White, in consultation with Meredith Ward Fine Art, New York.

The Wilson Museum is proud to host an exhibition of artwork given to the collection and on loan to us from generous Hollins alumnae and friends of the museum. The centerpiece of this exhibition is a beautiful portrait by Howard Chandler Christy, a prominent American illustrator in the early 1900s. Later in life, Christy turned to portrait painting, creating likenesses of powerful figures and celebrities including President and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge, Amelia Earhart, and Benito Mussolini. Join us as Hollins celebrates the kickoff of the 2008-2009 Capital Campaign.

Featuring works by married painters Louisa Matthíasdóttir and Leland Bell, this exhibition provides an in-depth presentation of their still lifes ranging from the 1950's through the 1990's. Widely regarded as two of the most energetic painters in New York's post-war art scene, this exhibition explores their dynamic partnership and shared commitment to the tradition of still life painting. Still Lifes is organized by the Hafnarborg Institute of Culture and Fine Art, Iceland, in collaboration with the family of the artists.