Encounters with the Collection: Art and Human Rights

August 27, 2024 – July 28, 2025

Encounters with the Collection: Art and Human Rights  is the fourth in a series of annual collection gallery rotations that bring fresh perspectives to the interpretation of the Benton’s holdings. This installation is mounted in collaboration with the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute’s Research Program on Arts & Human Rights at UConn. Spanning the 19th century to the present, the exhibition explores the ways that artists make human rights visible.

It features works of art by Francisco Goya, Käthe Kollwitz, William Kentridge, Michael Rakowitz, Ben Shahn, Zanele Muholi, Binh Danh, Genara Banzon, Juan Sánchez, and Sylvia de Swaan, among many others.

A stone arched tunnel with light at the end.

Sylvia de Swaan, The Tunnel, Terezin (1994), Gelatin silver print, Benton Museum Collection.

Man holding chicken amid thorn with exposed legs.

Leonard Baskin, Man of Peace (1952), Woodcut, The Harold Hugo Collection of Prints and Drawings, Benton Museum Collection.

  A nude man being restrained by five soldiers with tank at upper right.

Philip Evergood, Kangaroo Court (1957), Oil on canvas, Benton Museum Collection.

A boy with number “152” on front with butterfly wings on gold leaf of plant on black background.

Binh Danh, Ancestral Altar #9 (2005), Chlorophyll print and resin on nasturtium leaf, The Louise Crombie Beach Memorial Fund, Benton Museum Collection.