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Newsletter - Spring 1999
Current Exhibitions

Still Time: Photographs by Sally Mann
6 April - 30 May 1999

Evocative, serene, penetrating, lush, idyllic, disturbing. Sally Mann's photographs elicit responses that span the range of human emotions. Over the years, her unforgettable images have received a great deal of critical acclaim and she has been the recipient of prestigious grants from the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities as well as the Guggenheim Foundation. At the same time, however, her work-particularly the controversial nude studies of prepubescent girls and her own three children-has stirred controversy and become part of the current debate about artistic freedom and the role of child models.

A selection of her pictures from the last 25 years are on view in the art museum this spring and will be the focus of a series of public programs, including a lecture by Mann herself. These photographs demonstrate the breadth of her vision as well as her technical capabilities in both black and white and color. Mann has traditionally photographed with a century-old 8 x 10-inch view camera, working in and around the Arcadian landscape of her hometown of Lexington, Virginia. Using the large-format camera and darkroom techniques that hark back to 19th-century ideals, she has an almost obsessive approach to the physical qualities of her work. Normally, Mann does most of her photography in the summers, and spends the rest of the year printing in her darkroom. As Ted Orland, a former assistant to Ansel Adams, has noted, she is "one of the half-dozen best printers in the country."

Her subject matter has ranged from the general to the particular, from landscapes and still lifes to deeply psychological studies of women and children. In the 1971 Dream Sequence, Mann investigated the essence of personal relationships, especially those of women and girls. A few years later, she moved away from the figure and on to the depiction of landscape, creating evocative views of Virginia's beautiful Shenandoah Valley. Returning to her earlier involvement with photographing women, Mann subsequently developed narratives from the physical environments surrounding her subjects. Then, in a succession of abstract platinum prints, she concentrated on enhancing simple and idiosyncratic imagery through manipulation of tone and texture.

With the series At Twelve, Mann melded her diverse iconographic interests and formal styles in a group of arresting images that are among the best known of her works. Photographs from At Twelve flow together using one or more of the following elements: the dense richness of the local landscape and climate, a southern iconography, penetration of the subject's personality, and narrative exploration, as well as qualities of light, tonal control, and elegance of composition. Between 1984 and 1991, Mann undertook the study she calls Immediate Family which documents the complexities of familial intimacy and includes some of her most compelling and controversial images of her children.

Still Time comprises 65 photographs, including 15 made with the Cibachrome and Polaroid techniques. A catalogue published by Aperture accompanies the exhibition, which has been organized and circulated by the artist.

Gifts and Loans from Alumnae and Friends
20 April - 28 June 1999

Each spring the museum mounts an exhibition in the Rodney L. White Print Room that showcases recent gifts and loans, many of which have come to us from generous alumnae and other dedicated friends of the museum. This year the show will comprise more than 25 objects, including a number that have been given by alumnae in classes that are celebrating their reunions in 1999.

Notable among them are gifts and bequests from Eileen Paradis Barber ('29), whose beautiful Noguchi sculpture was highlighted in the last issue of the museum newsletter. Other works of art from Barber's collection that will be on view in the print room are a watercolor and pastel drawing by Georges Rouault entitled The Tragedian, a charcoal drawing of a pastoral scene by Camille Pissarro, and Paul Signac's 1913 watercolor view of the Pont Neuf in Paris. Marsden Hartley's colorful Yellow Rose-Pink Rose will also be in the show, along with two gemlike paintings by Max Ernst-Red Sun and Forest and Bird.

In an essay in the 1993 exhibition catalogue Collective Pursuits, Mount Holyoke Collects Modernism, Barber reminisced about her friendship with the photographer Berenice Abbott: "Before I met her though, she had been living in Paris and working with Man Ray, and she had gotten to know Max Ernst. When she moved back to New York, these two agreed to exchange some of her furniture for some of Ernst's paintings. Later, when Berenice needed to raise cash, she hung them in her studio and invited a few friends to come see them. . . . Joe and I bought two, of which Red Sun and Forest is part of a series that Ernst did of the Black Forest in Germany." Abbott also did a photographic portrait of Barber which, along with several other vintage prints of New York, will illustrate this aspect of Mr. and Mrs. Barber's extensive collection of modern art that has come to the museum.

Several gifts given to the museum over the years by art advisory board member Shelby Baier White ('59) will be on view, ranging from wood engravings by Winslow Homer and modern graphic works by Alex Katz and Josef Albers to a sculpture by the contemporary French artist Arman. Although White has in recent years shifted her interest to works of art from antiquity, her original impulse toward art collecting was spurred by her experience of modern art. Her interest in the 20th century is shared by fellow advisory board member, Odyssia Skouras Quadrani ('54) whose gifts of works on paper by Wassily Kandinsky and Piero Guccioni will also be included in the spring exhibition.

Other important works of art have come to the museum as memorials to alumnae, some of which will be featured in this eclectic gathering: a dramatic handcolored etching by Marc Chagall, Abraham Mourning, was given last year by Mrs. Harold Kaplan in memory of her sister, Lillian Lieberfeld Rosenthal ('24); a compelling self-portrait of the printmaker Käthe Kollwitz which Eleanor Selsam Webster ('48) and Margaret S. Holquist presented in memory of their mother Georgia Kauffman Selsam ('24); and Isabel Bishop's 1939 drawing which depicts a young woman laden with packages, a museum purchase with funds from the Class of 1934 in memory of their classmate Rachel Reynolds and from the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Club of Cincinnati in memory of Alice van Pelt ('40).

These works of art represent only a few of the museum's newest additions to the growing permanent collection which now numbers over 13,000 objects.

Senior Art Majors' Exhibition
1 - 23 May 1999

Graduation is always an exciting time for the seniors. There are many opportunities to see the result of four years of hard work through student recitals and performances. For studio art majors, May is the month of "The Show." This year, seven students will take part in the Senior Art Major's Exhibition which represents the culmination of an independent study course taken in spring semester.

The exhibition presents the results of a very busy 3-month period in which the students focus on individual development, working independently on their projects. In addition, they meet with their faculty advisors for discussion and critique. Associate Professor Nancy Campbell notes that "the final process of selecting and preparing their work for display at the museum gives them a special opportunity to work closely with the museum staff and to understand the complexities and value of a professionally organized exhibition.