Illusion and Certainty and Come On!: American Posters from WWI

The Hillstrom Museum of Art presents Illusion and Certainty (Paintings by Martin Weinstein) and Come On!: American Posters from World War I, on view from November 24, 2008 through January 30, 2009.

Illusion and Certainty includes fifty paintings by New York artist Martin Weinstein, many of them landscape depictions of Kenoten, a location in the Hudson River Valley where the artist often works. Weinstein s artworks have been exhibited in many venues in the United States as well as abroad in Paris, Warsaw, and Edinburgh, and they have appeared in publications including Art in America, ARTNews, and Arts Magazine. The artist s working method involves painting on layers of transparent acrylic sheets which, when stacked, form a composite, seemingly changeable image.

Come On!: American Posters from World War I consists of thirty-three propaganda posters from the World War I era, on loan from the College Archives of Gustavus Adolphus College. The exhibit considers the artistry of the images in the posters as well as the historical, political, religious and social background of each.

The exhibit was conceived by Laura Behling, an Associate Professor of English with an interest in the role of gender in the early twentieth century, who is herself a collector of such posters. Assisting her in the project was third-year College student Chelsea Kramer, who, with Behling, was the recipient of a Gustavus Adolphus College Presidential Faculty-Student Collaboration Grant. The two collaborated with the Museum, writing the didactic texts, including their general essay for the brochure that accompanies the exhibition and the essay texts for each of the thirty-three individual posters on view.