The museum features ongoing exhibits from the permanent collection and special, changing exhibitions.
"Eyes (nine elements)" 2001, by Louise Bourgeois, was commissioned on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Williams College Museum of Art with funds from the Museum Fellows, friends and museum endowments. The "Eyes" are permanent, in front of the museum.
WILLIAMSTOWN –It could be said that natural art surrounds the Williams College Museum of Art because it is situated in picturesque Williamstown.
But, go inside and find so much more.
The Williams College Museum of Art houses nearly 13,000 works that span the history of art. Its mission is to advance learning through lively and innovative approaches to art for the students of Williams College and communities beyond the campus.
Karl Weston, the museum’s founder and first director, established the museum in 1926 to provide Williams students with the opportunity for firsthand observation of fine works of art, a privilege he said was essential to the study of art.
An active, collecting museum, its strengths are in modern and contemporary art, photography, prints and Indian painting. The museum is especially known for its collection of American art from the late 18th century to the present.
The museum has two styles. One focuses not on a narrow topic like a single artist but something broad that crosses media, or periods, and then the exhibition examines it within the artistic, political or social context of the time.
“We might bring in other arts, such as music and dance, and speakers from other disciplines, to look at the show’s theme from a range of perspectives and disciplines,” said Christina Olsen, Class of 1956 Director Williams College Museum of Art.
“You’ll see this with our upcoming exhibition Now Dig This, which looks at the work of African American artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and ‘70s within the cultural social and political contexts of their time. It features art from across almost all media – works on paper, paintings, sculpture, video, etc,” Olsen said.
The other signature style is to have exhibitions that introduce the work of emerging artists – many of them challenging – to audiences. That’s been seen in the shows done over the years on David Hammons, Tony Ousler, Carrie Mae Weems and others.
The Williams College Museum of Art is home to the world’s largest repository of the work of the artist brothers Maurice Prendergast (1858–1924) and Charles Prendergast (1863–1948), who were born in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and lived in Boston.
“There are some wonderful juxtapositions of objects that are always on display that I’d especially recommend visiting, and that push visitors to think about some really big issues,” Olsen said, noting in the first-floor Bloedel gallery there is a small sculpture made of paper and stone by David Hammons called Rock Fan in a vitrine.
“Compare it to the gorgeous Dutch portraits by Wybrand Simonsz de Geest the Elder and Frans Pourbus the Younger in the same room,” she said. “They are utterly different in almost every way you can think of, but they share a love of fans and fan shapes, and all three artists seen together you begin to wonder whether Hammons work is a kind of ‘portrait’ too, of a rock fan maybe, and how costume and hairstyles form and constrict people’s identities.”
The museum features ongoing exhibits from the permanent collection and special, changing exhibitions.
“People should come regularly!” Olsen said. “Shows change all the time and even ‘permanent’ galleries have new work coming into them all the time.” ÂÂ