The Rothko Chapel
Today’s post comes from Deborah Steinberg ’14 and Art Center Student Docent.
One of my most frequent stops on my tours in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is the Mark Rothko painting. I ask visitors to look at the bright colors and abstract shapes, and then to describe what emotions they feel and what they...
A Recently Acquired Alice Neel Lithograph
Today’s post comes from Noble Ingram, class of 2016 and Art Center Student Docent.
In 2011, the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center acquired a lithograph by artist Alice Neel from Drs. Lenore Levine Weseley and Alvin C. Weseley. The work is a portrait titled Judith Solodkin and was printed and published in 1978.
Alice Neel (1900–1984) was an American...
Stoking the connection between thought and emotion
Today’s post comes from Calvin Lamothe, class of 2017 and Art Center Student Docent.
A group of local fifth graders had just finished their tour of the museum and were drawing in the galleries when one of their teachers approached me and asked what was up with the “alien” painting. I was confused, but then she...
Homicides on Halloween
Today’s post comes from Mikayla Brennan-Burke, class of 2017 and Art Center Student Docent.
On a very foggy Halloween night, Assistant Professor of Anthropology April M. Beisaw dug up two images of crime scenes and dissected them for an eager audience. Beisaw examined The Last Victim, a lithograph by George Bellows, and a police homicide photograph...
“Exactitude is not truth”: Henri Matisse’s Roses de Noel et Saxifrage
Today’s post comes from Angela Brown, class of 2016 and Art Center Student Docent.
For Henri Matisse, the most true and pure function of the painter was to show the essentials. He bought a small Cézanne painting titled Three Bathers which he kept in his studio, admiring Cézanne’s ability to present animate and inanimate objects as...
“High Art” Inspiring a Reinterpretation of a Children’s Story
Today’s blog post comes from Angela Brown, class of 2016 and Art Center Student Docent.
Upon learning that this year’s Founder’s Day theme would be Alice in Wonderland, I
couldn’t help but consider how stories from childhood remain with us throughout our
lives. I wanted to explore the way the significance and meaning of these stories shift
according to...
Post-War Culture of the Defeated
At the conclusion of World War I, Germany suffered terrible financial and social backlash from the rest of Europe. Veterans and civilians alike struggled to pick up the pieces and move on from wartime. War profiteers in Berlin lived sumptuously, in high contrast with the wounded veterans and families who outlived their primary breadwinner. Impoverished...
Uncovering The Four Ages of Man
Today’s post comes from Rhyston Mays, class of 2016 and Multimedia Student Assistant.
Valentin de Boulogne’s The Four Ages of Man (1629) hangs on the Art Center’s walls among other works from the seventeenth century. The first time I came across Valentin’s painting, I was not particularly intrigued. His style was familiar, like that of Michelangelo...
Photography, Environment, and Politics: Sawdust Mountain
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center actively encourages faculty and students from across all departments and programs to view the art collection as a teaching tool and the galleries as a learning site. Perhaps this is nowhere more evident than in this fall’s half-semester course, “Photography, Environment, and Politics: Sawdust Mountain.” The course, which is...
Angelic Gesture
Today’s post comes from Justine Paradis, class of 2013 and Art Center Student Docent.
Barbara Hepworth’s Maquette for Winged Figure (c. 1940–1) was created, as the title suggests, as a preliminary model for a larger sculpture that was eventually installed on the second story exterior of the John Lewis Building on Oxford Street in London. The...
Playing with Space: Gordon Matta-Clark at Vassar and Beyond
Today’s post comes from Lina Kavaliunas, Class of 2013 and Art Center Student Docent.
This spring break I found my way back home to Chicago where I saw the exhibition MCA DNA: Gordon Matta-Clark at the Museum of Contemporary Art. In the 1970s, Gordon Matta-Clark became known for his “anarchitecture” works where he carved out sections...
Seeing Red: Rothko on Stage
Today’s post comes from Emily MacLeod, Class of 2012 and Art Center Student Docent.
“What do you see?”
This is the first line of the play Red by John Logan—and a question that we as docents often ask when starting a dialogue about works in our collection. The plot follows Mark Rothko as he works on his...
