March 23 – July 30, 2017

Liz Whitney Quisgard was one of the few women artists represented by eminent gallerist Andre Emmerich in NYC in the 1960s.  Her career spans six decades and the work in this installation features an environment of patterned textiles and sculpture created in the last two decades.

The exhibition’s opening reception, featuring our three exhibits coinciding with Women’s History Month, is on Thursday, March 23, 2017 from 4:30-6:30pm.  Murderous Chanteuse will perform at the reception. Free to the public.

Exhibition on view March 23 through July 30, 2017. (Please note the Museum will be closed April 8-9, April 15-16, and May 8-15, 2017, as well as Mondays and holidays.)

March 23 – July 30, 2017

Objectifying Myself explores work by women artists, created between 1968-2005, which serve, to some degree, as self portraits.  But these “self portraits” employ surrogate objects rather than depictions of the artists’ faces or bodies. Artists in the exhibition include Judy Chicago, Louise Bourgeois, Miriam Schapiro, June Wayne, Louise Nevelson, and Kiki Smith. These works are on loan from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia (PAFA) which was founded in 1805 by painter and scientist Charles Willson Peale, sculptor William Rush, and other Colonial artists and business leaders. We thank PAFA, and especially David Brigham, Executive Director of PAFA and University of Connecticut alumus, for their generosity in collaboration.

March 23 – July 30, 2017  (closed May 8 – 15)

Work It features paintings by Ellen Emmet Rand and other women artists in the first half of the 20^th century—how they fought for opportunities, paid their bills, and found ways to have their art and creativity seen and taken seriously. Featuring several works by Ellen Emmet Rand, as well as pieces by Dorothea Lange, Violet Oakley, Mary Foote, Eudora Welty, Lois Mailou Jones, and Imogen Cunningham, “Work It” features the diversity of styles and subjects that helped women achieve both recognition and security as working artists.

Ellen Emmet Rand (1875-1941) was arguably one of the most important and prolific American portrait painters of her time but likely you have not heard her name before. This is in spite of the fact that during her career, she painted portraits of famed author Henry James, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and over 800 other notables. Her early career was meteoric: she studied with William Merritt Chase; by eighteen she was a regular illustrator for Vogue; at twenty she was encouraged by John Singer Sargent and Stanford White to study in Paris. She returned to the US in 1901 and set about painting the most famous and important people who could afford her fees. Moving between diverse patrons—from state governors to opera singers—Rand carefully balanced changing social mores and fashions with her clients’ need to project authority, intelligence, and beauty through their portraits. For Rand, as with the other artists in this show, portraits, illustrations, advertising and fashion imagery paid the bills and supported families. Yet this work also, simultaneously, suggested that these women were not “real” artists, and instead only worked for money, not love or creative commitment. This exhibition looks to confront the complexity of the careers of women artists who had to work to have their art seen but also had to work for money.

Tuesday April 25: Ellen Emmet Rand and Women Artists in the Early 20^th Century. A dialogue with Dr. Alexis Boylan and Dr. Emily Burns. Talk begins at 5:30pm.  See our calendar for details.

The exhibition’s opening reception, featuring our three exhibits coinciding with Women’s History Month, is on Thursday, March 23, 2017 from 4:30-6:30pm.  Murderous Chanteuse will perform at the reception. Free to the public.

Exhibition on view March 23 through July 30, 2017. (Please note the Museum will be closed May 8-15, 2017, as well as Mondays and holidays.)

The Benton’s collection of Rand’s work is viewable online, here.

January 26 – March 12, 2017

Opening Reception: Thursday, February 2, 2017
4:30 – 6:30pm

This annual exhibition highlights recent work of the permanent, adjunct, and visiting studio art faculty from the Department of Art and Art History, School of Fine Arts at UConn. A variety of media are featured; painting, sculpture, illustration, graphic design, printmaking, photography, and installation art. Such diverse bodies of work represent the most significant directions in contemporary art, as well as the unique vision of each artist-faculty member.

Highlighted Faculty Artists
Deborah Dancy
Ray DiCapua
Janet Pritchard

Note:  Photos and image details of additional faculty work in the exhibition can be seen below.  These photos are meant for marketing purposes only and may not be the best quality.  To see the entire works as they were meant to be seen, please come view the exhibition in person!

Image Detail of work by Edvin Yegir “Trumpula Rasa”, 2017

January 26 – March 12, 2017
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 2, 2017
4:30 – 6:30pm

Inspired by this year’s UConn Reads selected book, Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America by Eboo Patel, this exhibition features artists and subjects connected by a shared history, ideals, and identity that serve as bridges of cooperation throughout Islam and America.

*All works in the exhibition courtesy of the Leila Heller Gallery.

“The University of Connecticut’s UConn Reads program has been created to bring together the University community – from students, faculty, and staff to alumni and friends of UConn, as well as citizens of Connecticut – for a far-reaching and engaging dialogue centered on a book suggested by the community.”

Named by US News & World Report as one of America’s Best Leaders of 2009, Eboo Patel is the Founder and President of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a Chicago-based organization building the interfaith movement on college campuses. Author of the books “Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America” and “Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation,” which won the Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion. Eboo is also a regular contributor to the Washington Post, USA Today, Huffington Post, NPR, and CNN. He served on President Obama’s inaugural Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships and holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship. Eboo lives in Chicago with his wife, Shehnaz, and two sons. When he’s not teaching his kids about interfaith cooperation, you’ll find him feeding his coffee addiction and rooting for Notre Dame.–Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC)

Image Credit: The Snake Charmer of the 21s Century Savage, 2013. Shoja Azari, American/Iranian b. 1958