Virtual Exhibitions

Highlights from the Loeb’s Mexican Art Collection/Atracciones Culminantes de la Colección de Arte Mexicano en Loeb

Paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs by Mexican artists, as well as those born elsewhere but who were active in the country, comprise a very small portion of the collection of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. In conjunction with the exhibition, “Miracles on the Border: Retablos of Mexican Migrants to the United States”, the best examples of these were on display together for the first time. / Pinturas, grabados, dibujos y fotografías de artistas mexicanos, así como los nacidos en otros lugares pero que estuvieron activos en el país, comprenden una porción muy pequeña de la colección del Centro de Arte Frances Lehman Loeb. En conjunto con la exposición “Milagros en la Frontera: Retablos de Mexicanos Migratorios en los Estados Unidos”, los mejores ejemplos de estos se exhibieron juntos por primera vez.

Visible Bodies: Representing Blackness

This recently closed exhibition centered on the tension between visibility and invisibility, inherent to the medium of photography, through works by Black American artists.

Blazing Saddle: Reimagining the American West

Curated for the Film 218: Genre: The Western class in spring 2020, this exhibition features a selection of black-and-white photographs from the Loeb collection, alongside digital color images and a music video, that addresses central myths of the American experience associated with horseback riding, ranch labor, cowboys, and rodeo culture.

Reflections: Portrayals of and by African Americans from the Loeb

This exhibition is part of “Buildings and Belonging: Mapping the African American Experience at Vassar College since 1861”, a campus-wide project initiated by the African American Alumnae/i of Vassar College (AAAVC) to illuminate the enduring contributions and presence of African Americans on campus.

New Acquisitions: Garry Winogrand’s Beautiful Women

Held in spring 2017, this exhibition explores the “Women are Beautiful” series created by American photographer Garry Winogrand. Best known for his 35mm candid shots taken on urban streets in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, during that period, he completed a body of work called “Women are Beautiful” comprising almost one hundred candid images of women in public places that were published in a book of the same title in 1975.

Abstract Photography from the Permanent Collection

Held in fall 2017, this small, focused exhibition comprises eight works, ranging in date from 1948 to 2014, that feature diverse techniques and approaches to photography, from traditional gelatin silver prints to photograms and experiments with color photo-sensitive paper.

Billy Name: Inside Warhol’s Silver Factory

Held in spring 2018, this exhibition presents nine works by Billy Name, born William George Linich, who donated his artwork and ephemera to the Loeb after displaying them here in 1989. Name grew up in Poughkeepsie, later moving to New York City, then California, before returning to Poughkeepsie permanently in 1977.

Energy to Spare: ’50s Photographs by Grace Robertson

Held in summer 2018, this exhibition explores the career of British photographer Grace Robertson who created spontaneous, timeless images that offer rare glimpses of the human spirit, often with great humor and character. Her well-composed photographs balance aesthetics and documentation and demonstrate both a classic, fine art approach to the medium and a genuine interest in the lives of real people.

Framing Space: Photography and Architecture

Held in fall 2018, “Framing Space” explores the relationship between architecture and the photographic image, a perhaps unlikely pairing of two mediums that have become inextricably linked. On view are several works created from the mid 1930s through the 1970s depicting buildings and urban areas in various states of construction and destruction that explore the technique of framing as a methodology.

New Photography Acquisitions

This inaugural exhibition, held in fall 2016, featured ten artworks that were recently acquired with funds given by Vassar’s Advisory Council for Photography.

ART, SCIENCE, & TECHNOLOGY at the Loeb

To celebrate the opening of Vassar’s Bridge for Laboratory Sciences in spring 2016, the Loeb presented a series of installations of works from the permanent collection that mark the longstanding and multi-faceted relationship of Art, Science and Technology. Themes explored included botany, anatomy, zoology, optics, and technology. The selection of works, diverse in date and subject matter, illuminate the rich common ground that exists among artistic expression, scientific inquiry, and modernizing discoveries as we relentlessly attempt to understand and interpret the world around us, an enduring source of human curiosity and awe.

Drawn Together: The Visual Language of Drawing

Held in the in fall 2018, for this exhibition four members of the Art Department faculty selected a group of drawings from the Loeb’s permanent collection that are relevant to the curriculum of Art 102—Drawing I: Visual Language.

Menagerie in the Museum: Highlights from the Loeb

Assembled in spring 2017 for Art 218: The Museum in History, Theory, and Practice taught by Susan Donahue Kuretsky, this exhibition celebrates the range and quality of a college art collection, expanding ever since 1864 to provide support for class instruction and the pleasure of a wider public.

Silver in the Attic: Historical Archeology at Vassar

This exhibition was an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Loeb, Kelly Bernatzky ’19, Emma Wiley ’20, and April M. Beisaw, Associate Professor of Anthropology. Held in spring, 2019, the silver bowls, cutlery, and coffee sets on view were found in the attic of a Vassar building constructed in 1896. Their provenance is largely unknown, a mystery which motivated their study: how did this collection come to be? To answer this question, and learn more about the life-story of each object’s use and discard, they were examined using the techniques of historical archaeology.

Metal, Acid, Line: Etchings from the Loeb

Curated in spring 2020 in conjunction with Art 209 (a studio course that teaches the fundamentals of intaglio printmaking including the techniques of etching and drypoint as well as aquatint, engraving, embossing, and stippling), this exhibition showcases both the complexity achieved by master etchers as well as the accessibility of the medium to those new to the print shop and artist’s studio.

Movement Captured: Dance in Art from the Loeb

Organized by the Loeb and Miriam Mahdaviani, Vassar College Dance Department, with the assistance of Eleanor McClure-Chute, class of 2020, this exhibition explores the many rich exchanges between dance and fine art, best represented in the pivotal figures in twentieth-century ballet and modern dance, the latter dominated by influential American women.

“For through the painter must you see his skill”: Shakespeare in Art from the Loeb

This exhibition was organized in fall 2016 by the Loeb and Leslie Dunn, Associate Professor of English. It was one of two exhibitions (the other was featured in the Main Library) that commemorated the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare by showcasing the rich history of Shakespeare at Vassar.

Haunting Legacies: Photography and the Invisible

With the rise of social media, combined with the cellular phone’s retooling as a camera, photography has a new political role with photographs mobilizing grass root movements of resistance against violence and oppression. But what is it that these photographs convey and that no text can possibly tell us? “Haunting Legacies”, curated by Professor Giovanna Borradori and the class Philosophy 240: Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics in spring 2015, explores photography’s unique ability to point to that invisible flow, which silently regulates what is represented.

Accessorizing Paris: Fashion and Art in the Nineteenth Century

Organized by the Loeb and Susan Hiner, Professor of French & Francophone Studies, with the assistance of Emily Chancey ’18, this exhibition explores women’s fashion accessories Through the eyes of artists that served as keen observers of the trends and regularly incorporated them into their work – often harnessing or critiquing corresponding social associations.

India in Miniature: Paintings from the Loeb

Organized by the Loeb with Julie E. Hughes, Assistant Professor of History with thanks to Marika Sardar; Divya Cherian; Hamid Reza Ghelichkhani; Lars Odland ’17; and Irfan Badruddin ’20, this exhibition presented a microcosm of miniature painting from India that were selected works from Matthew Vassar’s founding gifts and later alumnae donations.

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