Current and Upcoming Exhibitions

On-Line Exhibitions

Past Exhibitions
- Harnett Museum of Art
- Harnett Print Study Center
- Lora Robins Gallery

Current and Upcoming Exhibitions

Building the Collection: Recent Acquisitions in the Harnett Print Study Center
Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center
August 21 – September 21, 2008
To highlight recent acquisitions in the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center, the exhibition includes a selection of works on paper that have been added to the museum’s permanent collection. Highlights include a 1910 drawing of the dancer Isadora Duncan by Abraham Walkowitz (American, 1878-1965), an 1894 etching titled Le Chapeau Épinglé by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919), a 1988 etching titled The Auction by Sue Coe (British, born 1951), and a large-scale 1983 woodcut titled The hiker said, ‘Death you shall not take the child’ by Steven Campbell (Scottish, 1957-2007).

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919), Le Chapeau Épinglé, 1894, etching on paper, image 4 ½ x 3 3/16 inches, Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center, University of Richmond Museums, Gift from the estate of Dr. and Mrs. George M. Modlin, H2007.09.01. © University of Richmond Museums

Model Warplanes: A Print Series by Malcolm Morley
Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art
August 21, 2008 – March 22, 2009
Born in 1931 in London, England, Morley’s troubling childhood memories of the blitzkrieg, the German air raids on Britain in 1940, influenced much of his work over his long career. His childhood passion for building model airplanes and ships became a common reference as he later realized that he preferred using found imagery (photographs and models) for his source material. Created in 2001, these prints feature images of cutouts for paper model airplanes — two based on World War One German fighter planes (Fokker DVII and Fokker DVIII) and two on American fighter planes used in World War Two (Corsair F4U and P-26 Pea Shooter). Generated from a set of his paintings based on hobbyist’s cards, the prints focus on the parts and decoration of the planes as presented in templates for paper models.

Chi-Yun: Breath Resonance in Far Eastern Painting
Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature
August 21 – September 28, 2008
Chi-yun (breath resonance) is the term coined by Chinese figure painter, Hsieh Ho in the sixth century to represent the first law of Chinese painting. The exhibition explores how this 1,500-year-old phrase relates to traditional Chinese and Japanese paintings, with examples of hanging scrolls and small paintings, including Flowering Branch, a hanging scroll by Sakai Hôitsu (Japanese, 1761-1828), Bamboo Fan by Taigadô Seiryô (Japanese, 1807-1869), and Landscape after Chu-jan, an ink on paper by Chang Tsung-ts’ang (Chinese, 1686-1756).

Annual Student Exhibition
Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art
August 21 – September 21, 2008
Selected by the studio art faculty, this exhibition features works by studio art majors and minors along with non-majors enrolled during the University’s 2007 fall and 2008 spring semesters.

Arctic Spirit: Inuit Art from the Albrecht Collection at the Heard Museum
Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art
September 5 – November 16, 2008
This exhibition features a selection from one of the most comprehensive museum collections of Inuit art in the United States. The Inuits, or Eskimos, live mainly in Siberia, Alaska, Greenland, and the Canadian Arctic, and share many cultural traits and a rich artistic heritage. More than 125 objects are presented, spanning 2,250 years of Inuit artistic creativity from 250 B.C.E. to the present, and include wall hangings, prints, drawings, sculptures, carved ivories, and decorated clothing.

Mariano Aupilarjuk (Nunavut, Inuit: Repulse Bay, born 1923), Goose Hunting, circa 1971, stone, ivory, and sinew, 9 3/16 x 5 5/8 x 3 ¼ inches, Albrecht Collection, Heard Museum, Phoenix Arizona, © Heard Museum

Transformations: Inuit Sculptures from the Collection
Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature
September 5, 2008 – June 14, 2009
Inuit sculpture is deeply rooted in tradition, steeped in storytelling, and offers a glimpse into the daily lives of the Inuit people. Highlighting the continuity and transformation of the art of the Inuit, the exhibition features a selection of contemporary Inuit sculptures, including objects from a recent gift of Virginia A. Arnold to the museum.

Ceramic Portraits: Selections from the Georganna Yeager Johns Collection of Royal Doulton Character Jugs
Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature
through September 21, 2008
Royal Doulton introduced character jugs into their line of ceramic decorative items in 1934. Noted for their details and creativity, these vessels depict figures from history, military, royalty, celebrities from the performing arts, characters from literature, and other themes from popular culture. The exhibition includes a selection of the jugs from the recent gift of Col. Leo D. Johns of his wife’s extensive collection to the museum.

John Barleycorn (Personification of Barley), issued 1978, Royal Doulton, Ltd., Burslem, England, slip-cast earthenware body with glaze, 6 x 7 x 4 3/4 inches, Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature, University of Richmond Museums, The Georganna Yeager Johns Collection of Royal Doulton Character Jugs, R2007.01.247.

This is War! The Pain, Power, and Paradox of Images
Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art and Print Study Center
October 5, 2008 – April 4, 2009
War is a perennial subject in all of the arts, often symbolizing mortality and struggle and illustrating the triumphs and degradations of humanity. Featuring more than sixty prints, drawings, and photographs from the collection, the exhibition focuses on war imagery over the past five centuries and explores issues of war and peace as seen through art, from the glory and patriotism of war to its pity and shame. Highlights of the exhibition include the complete series of etchings The Large Miseries and Misfortunes of War created in 1633 by Jacques Callot (French, 1592-1635), prints by Francisco de Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) from his series Los Desastres de la Guerra (1810-1820), a 2000 digital print by Gerhard Richter (German, born 1932) of a World War II reconnaissance photograph of Cologne, and the terrifying etching by Otto Dix (German, 1891-1969) of a bombed house in Tournai from his 1924 Der Krieg portfolio. The range of works by artists such as Käthe Kollwitz, Pierre Daura, George Bellows, Stefano della Bella, Kerr Eby, James McBey, Winslow Homer, Kara Walker, Avel de Knight, and many others, looks at war and its aftermath in all its diverse visual and emotional manifestations, from the heroic and uplifting to the brutal and despicable.

Francisco de Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828), Carretadas al Cementerio (Cartloads to the Cemetery), plate 64 from Los Desastres de la Guerra, circa 1808-1820 (first edition, printed 1863), etching, aquatint, drypoint, burin and burnisher on paper, image 5 1/8 x 7 1/8 inches, Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center, University of Richmond Museums, Museum purchase, funds from the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Acquisitions Fund, H2006.29.01 © University of Richmond Museums

Peace Warriors and Solitudes: Recent Photographs by Carl Chiarenza
Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature
through October 5, 2008
As one of the preeminent photographers of the 20th and 21st centuries, Chiarenza (American, born 1935) has influenced not only the practice of art but also the study and promotion of photography inside academia and beyond. This exhibition features photographs from two recent series of abstract works, inspired in part by the artist's reactions to the war in Iraq.

Carl Chiarenza (American, born 1935), Peace Warrior (Samurai) 7, 2003, gelatin silver print on paper, 45 ½ x 35 ½ inches, Collection of the artist, © Carl Chiarenza

Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity
Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature
October 22 – November 23, 2008
Kente cloth, made by the Asante peoples of Ghana and the Ewe peoples of Ghana and Togo, is the best known of all African textiles. Kente began as festive dress for special occasions and appeared in other important forms of regalia, including drums, shields, and fans. Over the past 40 years, the cloth has been used on both sides of the Atlantic. The exhibition bridges two continents, evoking and celebrating a shared cultural heritage and explores both the art and cultures of Africa and its expression of identity in African American communities.

Hester Bateman, The Queen of Silversmiths: Eighteenth-Century English Silver
Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature
through December 16, 2008
Hester Bateman (British, 1709-1794) took over her husband’s metal smithy in Bunhill Row, England, when she became widowed at the age of 51. Working into her eighties, Bateman and her sons built a successful silversmith business known for its spoons, sugar bowls, salt cellars, and teapots. The installation features a selection of Bateman silver from the recent gift of Mrs. Emma Ziegler Brown to the museum, and several pieces on loan from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts from a gift from Mrs. E. Claiborne Robins.

Studying the Figure: Works from the Collection
Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art
January 21 – March 6, 2009
The human figure is one of the most enduring themes in art. From representational to idealized to abstraction, the approaches to the figure are limitless. This exhibition presents drawings, paintings, and sculpture from the University Museums’ permanent collections that explore the figure throughout history, from detailed human renderings to the most abstract forms.

Form and Story: Narration in Recent Painting
Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art
January 21 – May 22, 2009
This exhibition explores narration in recent painting and how artists negotiate the complexity of multiple stories through images and materiality. On view are paintings by contemporary artists Steve DiBenedetto (American, born 1958), Angela Dufresne (American, born 1969), Hanneline Rogeberg (Norwegian, born 1963), and Erling Sjovold (American, born 1961). These artists embrace the return to narration in contemporary art in very different ways, but their paintings are all poised between imagery and process, and their stories exist in a transformative, uncanny space they have created.

Erling Sjovold (American, born 1961), Wake, 2007, oil on canvas, 24 x 20 inches, Collection of the artist © Erling Sjovold

Faces and Flowers: Painting on Lenox China
Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature
February 5 – June 28, 2009
In 1889 Walter Scott Lenox created the Ceramic Art Company whose ambition was to “strive for the perfection of American porcelain.” Lenox hired the best artisans specializing in clay bodies, firing techniques, design, and decorating, therefore producing the quality and creativity shown in his company’s wares surpassing the best ceramics produced in England and Europe at the time. Featuring seventy objects drawn from public and private collections, the exhibition highlights the exquisite talents of Lenox’s china painters, showing a variety of work by the firm’s leading artists made for America’s foremost citizens, including orchid fancier Ferdinand Roebling, grandson of the great bridge builder, and Newark industrialist Franklin Murphy, who was governor of New Jersey from 1902 to 1905.

Warhol’s “Photographs and Pictures”: Selections from the Gift from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art
March 20 – May 22, 2009
The exhibition showcases selections from the recent gift of 153 original Andy Warhol photographs to the permanent collection of the University of Richmond Museums, given as part of the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program. In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the organization donated more than 28,500 original Warhol photographs valued at more than $28 million and divided amongst 183 college and university art museums in the U.S.

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987), Mick Jagger, Mackenzie Phillips, and Nicky Lane Weymouth, circa 1970-1987, silver gelatin print, 8 x 10 inches. Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center, University of Richmond Museums, Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., The Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program. H2008.13.132. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

Chi-Yun, Breath Resonance in Contemporary Art: Museum Studies Seminar Exhibition
Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature
April 2 – July 12, 2009
Chi-yun (breath resonance) is the term coined by Hsieh Ho in the sixth century to represent the first law of Chinese painting. The exhibition, a continuation of the fall exhibition Chi-Yun: Breath Resonance in Far Eastern Painting, explores how this 1,500-year-old phrase is expressed in contemporary art. The exhibition is presented by students enrolled in the Seminar in Museum Studies during the 2009 spring semester, a course offered in the University’s Department of Art and Art History and part of the Interdisciplinary Concentration in Arts Management.

Senior Thesis Exhibition
Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art
April 17 – May 8, 2009
April 24 – May 17, 2009
Artspace Gallery @ Plant Zero, Zero East 4th Street, Richmond
Selected by the studio art faculty to participate in the thesis program, graduating senior studio art majors present their artwork in this exhibition.