Williamstown, MA—Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) will present Three Visions of Rural America: Recently Acquired Works on Paper. Kara Walker's 2003 Negress Notes (Slavery Reparations Act), a series of watercolors and the museum's newest purchase, is featured along with lithographs by Thomas Hart Benton and photographs by Kristin Capp. Three Visions of Rural America is on view June 14-September 1, 2003.

"In reviewing our recent acquisitions, Claire Rifelj and I recognized certain affinities between these particular works, in spite of their distinct aesthetics, and found ourselves drawn to seeing them installed together," says Director Linda Shearer. Claire Rifelj is a first year graduate student in the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art and has organized this exhibition with Linda Shearer.

Each year, new works of art are acquired by the museum through donations and purchases, thanks to the generosity of donors and endowed funds earmarked for acquisitions. The museum presents new acquisitions on a regular basis and this exhibition is the current effort. Alumni donors made these acquisitions possible: David P. Tunick, Class of 1966, and his wife Elizabeth Tunick gave the Benton lithographs, and Nicholas G. Fluehr, Class of 1984, and his wife Nicole D. Shearman donated the Capp photographs.

A Surprising Look at Rural America

Joining recent work of Walker (American, b. 1969) and Capp (American, b. 1964) with lithographs from the 1940s by Benton (American, 1889-1975) creates a surprising look at rural America.
Kara Walker has received much critical attention for her provocative silhouetted images that depict imagined scenes from the Civil War era. Her work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions internationally, including Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress, co-organized by WCMA and the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College and scheduled to open at Williams on August 30, 2003. Walker's watercolors in this exhibit serve as a counterpoint to the large-scale, black and white shadows that populate so many of her well-known works.

Thomas Hart Benton, an American regionalist artist, created lithographs whose imagery is surprisingly similar to several of Kara Walker's watercolors. Whereas the rolling hills and plowed fields in Benton's work convey a nostalgia for things in America's past, Walker's work evokes the thinly veiled horrors that accompany history. Capp's photographs, on the other hand, portray the contemporary Hutterite community in Washington State, which rejects industrialized society in favor of former ways of life. The three artists offer interpretations of the landscapes and peoples of rural America using different approaches that together offer viewers unexpected relationships.

Publicity Images Available

A copy of the watercolor Homeland, 2003 by Kara Walker is available for use. Publicity images for Three Visions of Rural America and other exhibitions can be found at www.wcma.org/press.

The Williams College Museum of Art is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, from 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is free and the museum is wheelchair accessible.

Contact: Jonathan Cannon, Public Relations Coordinator
413.597.3178; WCMA@williams.edu