Exhibitions Archive
The Dartmouth Pow-wow Suite
Mateo Romero
In spring 2009, the Hood Museum of Art commissioned Mateo Romero, Class of 1989, to paint a series of ten portraits of current Native American Dartmouth students as they danced at the college’s annual Pow-Wow. He photographed his subjects in May of that year and completed the almost life-sized portraits in 2010, using his signature technique of overpainting the photographic prints.
American Art from the Huber Family Collection
Embracing Elegance, 1885–1920
This exhibition features over thirty examples of American impressionist and realist pastels, drawings, and paintings by some of the leading artists active at the turn of the twentieth century, including Cecilia Beaux,Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Robert Henri, John Singer Sargent, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, John Henry Twachtman, and J. Alden Weir. Collected by Jack Huber, Dartmouth Class of 1963, and his wife, Russell, these works reveal a range of responses to the dramatic cultural and artistic developments of the era—from the brilliant colors and broad handling of the impressionists to the grit and verve of the urban realists.The predominant aesthetic in this collection, however, is the period taste for refinement and tranquility as seen in serene landscapes, poetic still lifes, and, especially, images of elegant women in repose.
Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life
This traveling exhibition and publication are drawn from the Hood Museum of Art’s George Maciunas Memorial Collection of works by Fluxus artists, enriched with loans from the Museum of Modern Art, Harvard University, and the Walker Art Center. Intended to provide a fresh assessment of Fluxus, the installation is designed to encourage experiential encounters for the visitor. The 1960s–70s phenomenon that was Fluxus resists characterization as an art movement, collective, or group, and it further defies traditional geographical, chronological, and medium-based approaches. The fundamental question—“What’s Fluxus good for?”—in fact has important implications for the role of art today. The function of Fluxus artworks is to help us practice life; what we “learn” from Fluxus is how to be ourselves.
Esmé Thompson
Esmé Thompson envelops her creative enterprise in the colors and complexities to be found in the visual “surfaces” of textiles, illuminated manuscripts, and the botanical world. Her art also embraces the work of other painters whom she admires, particularly Renaissance masters and the remarkably unique paintings French artist Edouard Vuillard (1868–1940). This exhibition of twenty-eight paintings and collages, plus a recent work in glazed ceramic, focuses on the last five to six years of her creative practice and demonstrates the full flowering of her interest in design and pattern. It is also a tribute to the artist’s career as a professor in Dartmouth College’s Studio Art Department, where she has worked for the last three decades.
Okeanos, International + Contemporary Relflections on the Sea
For anyone who has witnessed its sublimity, above the surface or at its depths, the ocean (from Greek “okeanos”) leaves a powerful, sensuous impression. Contemporary artists Yves Klein, Jennifer Moller, and Hiroshi Sugimoto each reflect upon the experience of ocean via distinct media: Klein with his hyper-saturated, textured canvas; Moller with her darkened, black and white video footage; and Sugimoto with his abstracted photographs of water and air. Whether captured in paint or film, or concentrating on water’s depth or surface, substance or void, stillness or motion, the monochromatic representations of sea depicted by each of the international contemporary artists in this exhibition demonstrate that the experience of ocean is universal.
Tibetan Artists Respond
Tradition Transformed
Contemporary Tibetan artists are in a precarious position. While their work is informed by Tibetan artistic traditions, the majority of these artists do not live in Tibet, and some never have. Their challenge is twofold: as they forge a name for themselves in the competitive art world, they must also try to find their own place within Tibet’s rich and formalized artistic legacy. This exhibition features artists who grapple with issues of cultural and artistic negotiation and who work with traditional forms in innovative ways. The artists submitted new and recent works to the exhibition that highlight their styles and range.