Art Exhibitions
July 22, 2008 – May 31, 2009
Modern and Contemporary Art from the AMAM Gallery
Ellen Johnson Gallery
Important American and European paintings, sculpture, and works on paper — ranging from Claude Monet’s 1919 Wisteria to a newly acquired sculpture, The Fin Within, by the inventive and provocative sculptor Tim Hawkinson — will be on view in the Ellen Johnson Gallery during the 2008-09 academic year. Other highlights from the AMAM’s strong modern and contemporary holdings include works by John Bock, Chakaia Booker, Sam Gilliam, Elizabeth Murray, Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, and Richard Serra.
August 26 – December 23, 2008
Aux Barricades! French Protest Posters from May ’68
Ambulatory Gallery
Art incited riots when in May 1968 student and worker uprisings calling for social and economic reform led to pitched street battles and caused a general strike that paralyzed France. Innovative posters with snappy slogans and stark layouts created by the demonstrators were put up around Paris and the provinces. The AMAM is pleased to be able to exhibit twenty-four works, loaned by the Naples Museum of Art (Naples, Florida), in conjunction with the 40th anniversary commemorative events being planned by Oberlin College's department of French and Italian.
August 26 – December 23, 2008
British Art from the AMAM Collection
John N. Stern Gallery
Encompassing 13th-century illuminated manuscripts, William Hogarth's witty "moral progresses," the Pre-Raphaelites of the Victorian Age, Henry Moore's undulating forms, and Bridget Riley's Op Art abstrations, this exhibition showcases more than seven centuries of British art from the AMAM collection. With attention to their social and cultural context, more than 100 objects in varied media chart the rise of a national school, the birth of photography, the emergence of modernism, and the country's rich traditions of history painting, satire, portraiture, and landscape.
September 9 – December 23, 2008
“The Painted Arrow People” Art of the Cheyenne
Ripin Print Gallery
On display for the first time in sixteen years, the vivid and colorful 'ledger drawings' by the Southern Cheyenne warrior-artist Howling Wolf are displayed alongside exquisitely beaded artifacts created by Cheyenne women of the time.
September 9 – December 23, 2008
The Mexican Revolution in Prints and Paintings
Ripin Print Gallery
Post-revolutionary prints and paintings by the Mexican Muralists - José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Siqueiros - and their contemporaries are spotlighted in this teaching exhibition. Powerful evocations of indigenous laborers, native landscapes, and human suffering alternately glorify and problematize Mexico's monumental social and political upheavel which began in 1910. Students in History 361, "The Mexican Revolution: Birth, Life, Death," will use these works as primary materials when exploring the continually evolving interpretations of the Revolution and its ultimate meaning.
About the Allen Memorial Art Museum
Founded in 1917, the Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) is one of the finest college or university collections in the United States. Comprising more than 12,000 works of art from virtually every culture and spanning the history of art, the AMAM’s collection is a vital cultural resource for the students, faculty, and staff of Oberlin College as well as the surrounding community. Notable strengths include 17th-century Dutch and Flemish art, 19th- and early 20th-century European and contemporary American art, and Asian, European, and American works on paper. The collection is housed in an impressive Italian Renaissance-style building designed by Cass Gilbert and named after its founder, Dr. Dudley Peter Allen, a distinguished graduate and trustee of Oberlin College. In 1977, Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates designed an addition that represents one of the earliest and finest examples of postmodern architecture in the United States.