The Official Blog of the Allen Memorial Art Museum

“The bust of James Peck Thomas strikes the eye.

He rules the Sculpture Court with a bold stare.

His features shine with confidence, but why?

He knows we envy him his facial hair.

He seems so stoic with that solemn gaze.

He looks like he would never scream or shout.

He must have needed patience all the days

it took for him to grow his mustache out.

Though James himself was never known to sin,

his portrait’s presence borders on injurious.

What hipster would not give his cardigan

for a handle-bar and sideburns that luxurious?

I know I’d pay a million dollars cash

to have such a magnificent mustache.”

Edmonia Lewis’s Bust of James Peck Thomas, a fifteen-minute sonnet by Sarah Riecke (OC ‘13) - student docent at the AMAM, written as part of a gallery exercise for this year’s Practicum in Museum Education.

Image:
Edmonia Lewis ( American, 1844–1907)
Bust of James Peck Thomas, 1874
Marble
R. T. Miller Jr. Fund, AMAM 2002.3 

Happy Lunar New Year! Help bring in the Chinese “Year of the Dragon” with these Family Self-Guides! There are many works of art in the Allen Art Museum collection depicting these mythical beasts, and this self-guide takes a look at six of them.

Family Self-Guides are available at the front desk of the museum, and are a great way to explore the museum galleries. Have a suggestion for a self-guide theme? Let us know!

If you are a fan of our Monet painting Wisteria - take note. After just over a semester on display, the work will be taken down soon. Your last chance to see it in the AMAM galleries is this Sunday, January 22. It will then go on loan to the Cincinnati Museum of Art for their exhibition “Monet in Giverny: Landscapes of Reflection.”

To make up for it, we thought we’d post some detailed images of Monet’s brushstrokes in the work - late in his career, they could be characterized as very loose, almost abstract, but, never sloppy or imprecise.  

Of course, our early Monet painting, The Garden of the Princess, will remain on display. 

Today we honor the memory of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In this photo, taken by Ernest Withers, King is confronted at the funeral of Medgar Evers, a civil rights activist and World War II veteran assassinated in June 1963. 

Ernest Withers was an African-American photojournalist who was born and worked in Memphis. He documented the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1960s. His self-published pamphlet of photographs on the Emmit Till murder helped spur the equal rights movement.

Withers described his first-hand involvement with the movement: “I’ve never been so scared in my life as I was in some of those places. You’d go into town with one of those big four-by-five press cameras…you couldn’t hide it anyplace. That camera was the first thing people would go for.”

Withers forged a close personal relationship with King, Evers, and James Meredith. His visual records of events like the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and King’s assassination were often the first - and sometimes the only - photographs to document these events as they unfolded. Often this happened before the national press took up the stories. Withers reminds us that in the 1950s and early 1960s, the black papers were not part of the national wire services.


Image:
Ernest C. Withers (American, 1922–2007)
Dr. Martin Luther King Is Confronted: Dr. King is stopped by police at Medgar Evers’ funeral, Jackson, Mississippi, June 1963
From the portfolio I am a Man, 1963
Gelatin silver print
Oberlin Friends of Art Fund
AMAM 2004.6.6 

Did you know that the AMAM has had a Tumblr blog since August 2009? Over that time, there have been a number of great entries about the collection, our recently completed renovation project, works on loan to special exhibitions, public programs, and guest blogs written by Oberlin College professors, AMAM staff, and AMAM student docents. There’s a wealth of images, audio, video, and links to discover as well. 

You can find all our previous entries on our Archives page.

You can make searching the Archives a game! Can you find the references to True Blood, Assassin’s Creed II, and the NBA…?

Field trip! This past Saturday, students in the museum’s “Practicum in Museum Education” class visited the Cleveland Museum of Art to view the wonderful Fu Baoshi exhibition before it closed, and to view the prestigious permanent collection.

Every year since 1990 (except during our recent renovation project), the museum has taught this course, also known as the docent training class, during Oberlin College’s Winter Term. On completion of the class, students volunteer as docents for the many K-12 and adult tours that visit the museum each year.

The museum’s Curator of Education teaches this intensive course, during which students are introduced to a range of theories and practices on museum learning; conduct extensive research on the AMAM collection; practice public speaking and the practical aspects of conducting gallery tours; and are introduced to AMAM staff and other professionals as a way to learn about museum and arts-related careers. 

Welcome back to those students returning to campus for Winter Term - and for those who are away, and perhaps in a different climate, this work hints a little at what you are missing…

Image:

Anton Mauve (Dutch, 1838–1888)
Snow Storm, ca. 1880
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Morse Woodbury
AMAM 1966.17

A horse is a horse, of course, but how accurate are the depictions of horses seen in this chess piece from the AMAM collection? You can find out in this fascinating blog written by Barbara Drake Boehm, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Curator of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. The blog is a companion to their current exhibition, “The Game of Kings: Medieval Ivory Chessmen from the Isle of Lewis” on view now through April 22. The AMAM chess piece is currently on display in the museum’s East Gallery. 

Image:
English 
Chess Piece of a Knight, ca. 1120–40
Ivory
R. T. Miller Jr. Fund, 1948.310

Please note that the museum will be closed from Saturday, December 24 through Monday, January 2, 2012 for Oberlin College’s winter shutdown. Our normal hours will resume at 10am on Tuesday, January 3. 

Happy Holidays! And, for those Obies out there - have a great winter break!

Image:

Leonard Ochtman (American, born in Holland, 1854–1934)
Winter Afternoon, 1896
Oil on canvas
James K. (OC 1946) and Anne Fassett (OC 1947) Sunshine American Art Fund
AMAM 2009.13 

The last section of the “Museum for Oberlin” exhibition offers a selection of recent acquisitions that were presented to the AMAM as gifts-in-kind from donors or purchased with museum funds designated specifically for that purpose. Since general College funds have never been used to acquire art for the museum, Into the Future celebrates the generosity and foresight of the many donors who help the museum to continuously develop the collection. In addition to works that amplify existing collection strengths, the works on view showcase the growing holdings of photographs spanning the entire history of the medium, as well as twentieth-century art from Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, and Japan. These artworks have already played a central role in inspiring innovative curricular approaches to teaching and learning and support a broad range of class visits across the College and Conservatory.

Image:

Tim Davis (American, born in Africa, 1969)
Rainbow Bread, from the Voidfill/Vanitas series, 2006
C-print
Gift of Cristina Delgado (OC 1980) and Stephen F. Olsen (OC 1979)
AMAM 2010.16