Past Exhibitions

A Visual Feast: Recent Acquisitions and Promised Gifts

April 10–July 20, 2003

Ed Burtynsky (Canadian, b. 1955) Nickel Tailings #55, Sudbury, Ontario. Chromogenic color print photograph, 1996 Purchase, Madeleine Pinsof Plonsker (class of 1962) Fund

In the United States more than 8,000 museums, of all sizes and types, celebrate the breadth of human experience and expression. As keepers and stewards of natural and cultural heritage, museums are by design collecting institutions. One way they expand is by accepting donations of objects that are related to their mission and fit the scope of their collections and acquisition criteria. In this country, museums are in large part reflections of individuals who give their precious collections not only to share them, but also to preserve them. Museums also benefit from monetary donations that allow for purchases that build a collection’s strength. The Mount Holyoke College Art Museum is no exception. In recognition of the generosity by so many individuals, the exhibition A Visual Feast: Promised Gifts and Recent Acquisitions highlights exquisite works of art that have recently entered or been promised to the collection.

For example, Renee Conforte McKee (class of 1962), owner of a distinguished New York gallery, regularly gives paintings, prints, and drawings to the museum. Visitors to the A Visual Feast will see examples of her generosity in Little Egypt, a painting by Harvey Quaytman, and Fossils, Feelings, a pastel by Stuart Diamond. Another alumna has placed on long-term loan, with the promise to give, a major collection of old master and modern prints. They include works by Piranesi, Durer, Holbein, Canaletto and Manet. Dr. Stephanie Grinnell Beling (class of 1957) is a collector of contemporary art glass that she has promised to the museum. Visitors to the exhibition will see a selection of these jewel-like sculptural pieces by American, eastern European, and Scandinavian artists. An important silver coffee pot, presented by Renee Scialom Cary (class of 1948) evidences the revolution in drinking habits that took place in the 17^th and 18^th centuries as tea, coffee and chocolate were introduced to and then popularized in the West.

Milton Avery (American, 1885-1965) Sea and Sand Dunes. Oil on canvas, 1955. Private collection, Northampton, Massachusetts. Promised gift

As alumnae, these donors have an obvious connection to the museum. But other gifts and promises have come from collectors whose links to Mount Holyoke aren’t so apparent. For example, a Northampton collector has promised the museum a group of modern and 19^th-century masterpieces, including works by Milton Avery, Hans Hofmann, Emil Nolde, J.M.W. Turner, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro and John Constable. "I have been involved on the Art Advisory Board for nearly twenty years," he reflects, "and I really admire the professional staff at the museum and what they do." Says director Marianne Doezema, "These masterpieces will radically change the face of the museum."

Moving to smaller quarters in Boston last summer, Roy Hammer asked Joellen Secondo, a professional curator, to help with the disposition of his collections, including an outstanding group of European apothecary jars and mortars dating from the Renaissance to the 18^th century. She immediately contacted Mount Holyoke curator Wendy Watson, an expert on Italian Renaissance maiolica and with whom she worked in connection with ceramics exhibition at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Within two weeks Watson met the Hammers, viewed the collection, and concluded the gift. Enhancing the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum’s mission as a teaching facility, these objects make fascinating links between art and science and offer students exciting opportunities for interdisciplinary study.

In 1997 the museum purchased the spectacular ancient Roman sculpture of Faustina the elder, thanks to several generous donors. Soon after arriving, the white marble head of the empress (wife of Antoninus Pius), with her elaborate braided hairstyle, formed the centerpiece of a major exhibition about her. Mark Salton, a major figure in the numismatic world, came into contact with the museum when asked to lend some Renaissance medals to the show. Deeply impressed by the quality of the exhibition, he offered the museum a selection of more than 250 ancient Roman coins that feature female portraits and images of female deities and allegorical figures, some of which will be on display in A Visual Feast. They provide excellent material for broader research into the ancient world.

American sculptor Joseph Cornell is best known for his collages and handmade box assemblages whose contents are unified by various conceptual and visual associations. Birds were recurring motifs, as were small glass pharmaceutical bottles. A representative of the Joseph and Robert Cornell Foundation who visited the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum was favorably impressed with the quality of the collection. "Much to our delight," says Watson, "the foundation, which rarely gives to college or university museums, presented us with two of the artist’s famous boxes and nine of his unusual collages." Several of these rare works will be on view in A Visual Feast.

Recent purchases of important landscape paintings, funded by many individuals, have built on one of the permanent collection’s major strengths. "For years we had been hunting for a ‘classic’ example of Neoclassical landscape," says Doezema. "For two decades we searched in Paris, London, and New York and finally found a superb Valenciennes, a leader of the movement. Our painting was shown in the Paris Salon of 1792 together with another of his landscapes. That painting, as it turns out, is now at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, still, like ours, in its original frame." Another long search for a prime example of a Dutch landscape–as opposed to the Italianate landscapes by Dutch artists–resulted in the purchase of an archetypal van Goyen in splendid condition. "In this lovely small gem, found with a Dutch dealer, we see what everyday Dutch residents saw as they went about their daily business," explains Doezema.

Annie Leibovitz (American, b. 1949) Julie Foudy, Midfielder, Seminole County Sports Training Center, Sanford, Florida. Gelatin silver print photograph, 2001 (negative 1996) Purchase, Madeleine Pinsof Plonsker (class of 1962) Fund © Annie Leibovitz

"Boosts to the photography collection have also come through some marvelous gifts in kind or from funds to buy photographs in particular," says Watson. "We’ve long been interested in Sally Mann and had a show of her work a few years ago. Barbara Johnson Parnass (class of 1948), herself a photographer, helped us buy an evocative Mann image entitled Yard Eggs." The museum also acquired Annie Leibovitz’s amazing color photograph of dancer Therese Capuccili who performs internationally and will be at Jacob’s Pillow this summer. Another Leibovitz purchase highlights the strength and grace of powerful soccer player Julie Foudy.

Norma Marin, daughter-in-law of the distinguished American artist John Marin, has promised a major bequest of more than 170 important modern American paintings, sculpture and works on paper, collected over 40 years, to Mount Holyoke, Smith and Wellesley. In a groundbreaking method of donation, the Norma Marin Collection will be jointly owned by and rotated among the three institutions. Highlights of the photographic collection will be on view, including works by Barbara Morgan, Minor White, and Paul Strand.

Return to list of Past Exhibitions