Calendar

Join Rebecca Acabchuk, who will lead Healing Meditation in the museum gallery.

This event is in collaboration with UConn's Counseling and Mental Health Services.

Note this is a limited space event. No walk in's.

Sign up HERE: SOLD OUT

Alexis Boylan, guest curator of "The Business of Bodies: Ellen Emmet Rand (1875-1941)" discusses the ways in which Rand’s work broke barriers while still conforming to social norms. How does gender and race play a part in artists of Rand's time?

4:30 - 5pm - Coffee Reception
5 pm - Talk starts
4:30 – 5 – Reception

Alexis L. Boylan is Associate Director of the Humanities Institute, and has a joint appointment with Art and Art History and the Africana Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut. She is the author of Ashcan Art, Whiteness, and the Unspectacular Man (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017) and editor of Thomas Kinkade, The Artist in the Mall (Duke University Press, 2011). Boylan has articles published in American Art, Journal of Curatorial Studies, MELUS, Rethinking Marxism, Prospects, and Woman’s Art Journal as well as contributing essays to numerous museum exhibition catalogues. She is currently working on a book about Ellen Emmet Rand that will be out soon.

**If you require an accommodation to participate in this event, please leave a message at 860-486-4520 by January 3rd.

New this year! After hours at the Benton. We will be open until 8pm on the 1st Thursdays during the semesters.

Open house in partnership with the Beanery, featuring hands on activities and games, drop-in tours and live music.

The Beanery will be open with drink specials available and Open Mike from 4:30 to 8pm.

In the Benton: Hands on activities, scavenger hunts, giveaways, photo booth, drop-in tours, live music.

Fun for everyone.

Join Amanda Douberley, Assistant Curator/Academic Liaison, for 30 minutes of close looking and discussion focused on a single artwork in the Benton's collection.

The subject for this discussion will be Ellen Emmet Rand "Self-Portrait" (1927), Oil on canvas. National Academy of Design, New York

Develop your critical thinking skills by learning to look at objects with a critical eye. It will help you with college courses and navigating everyday life.

Open to everyone, adults or students.

Salon at the Benton: Art and Conversation
WHO IS THE REAL SUBJECT OF THE PORTRAIT? SITTER? SOCIETY? ARTIST?
Join the discussion

From the Mona Lisa to “selfies,” this salon will explore the artists’ and sitters’ intent, memorialization, branding, the influence of social trends, and other critical issues in portraiture using works from the Benton’s current exhibition and permanent collection.

5-5:30 pm Cash Bar; light hors d'oeuvres
5:30 pm Discussion commences.
FREE Donations are gratefully accepted.
RSVP appreciated by February 27.
Email benton@uconn.edu or call 860-486-5084.

PANELISTS
Pamela Bramble is Associate Professor of Painting at the University of Connecticut. Her teaching specialties include drawing, painting and art appreciation. Her work is represented in public and private collections and has been reviewed by The New York Times, The Hartford Courant, Hartford Advocate and Art New England.

Michael Bradford is Professor, Head of Dramatic Arts, and Artistic Director of Connecticut Repertory Theatre at UConn. He teaches theater history, dramatic literature and playwriting,is an award-winning playwright, and considered one
of the most promising African American playwrights today. His plays have been produced at various important venues regionally and internationally.

Susan Spiggle is Professor emeritus from the Department of Marketing in the School of Business at UConn. She worked with Alexis Boylan, Guest Curator on the current exhibition The Business of Bodies: Ellen Emmet Rand and the Persuasion of Portraiture exploring how Rand branded herself as an artist. Spiggle has written a chapter in the upcoming book on Rand.

MODERATOR
Veronica Makowsky is Professor of English and Women’s Studies at UConn. Her specialties include 20th- Century American literature (women’s, ethnic, Southern), ethnic American literature (multi-ethnic). She has written several books, most recently The Fiction of Valerie Martin: An Introduction (Louisiana State University Press, 2016).