Special Events

Past Exhibitions

he Williams College Museum of Art maintains an active program of changing exhibitions emphasizing the broad areas of American art, modern and contemporary art, and art from Asia and other non-Western civilizations. In recent years WCMA has presented a wide range of loan exhibitions, including early 20th century graphic design, African masks, paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe, the travel sketches of Louis Kahn, and works by such contemporary artists as Vito Acconci, Kiki Smith, CarrieMae Weems, and Tony Oursler. Many exhibitions organized by WCMA travel to other museums and likewise WCMA hosts notable traveling exhibitions. Site-specific installations include a wall drawing by Sol LeWitt, which was completed in January 2001, and IDOL: A New Work by Michael Oatman. Exhibitions are also held in Media Field, a permanent viewing space dedicated to a continually-changing program of projected video, computer, and new media works.

The museum frequently changes the installation of works from its own collection. Exhibitions drawn from the collection have highlighted such topics as surrealism, modernism, medieval devotional art, pre-Columbian art from Mesoamerica, Rajput and Mughal painting, German expressionism, American landscape painting, modern American photography, and major works by such contemporary artists as Jenny Holzer and Robert Morris. In 1987 two adjoining galleries were dedicated to the American artist-brothers Maurice and Charles Prendergast. As part of the ongoing activities of the Prendergast Archive and Study Center, exhibitions in these galleries focus on the Prendergasts and their artistic and cultural context in the period from 1850 to 1950.

image: Class of 1954 Gallery. Photo by Arthur Evans