African works, watercolors featured in new exhibits at the Hillstrom Museum of ArtJanuary 17, 2020All day

Two new exhibitions, Eloquent Objects: African Works from the Collection of Ruth and Raymond Reister, and Watercolors in the Hillstrom Museum of Art will be on view in the Hillstrom Museum of Art from November 25, 2019 through January 31, 2020.

There will be an opening reception Monday, November 25 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

There will be a Gallery Talk during the opening reception, starting at 7:30 p.m., given by historian of African art Martha G. Anderson and titled The Reister Collection: Insights into African Art and Worldviews.

PLEASE NOTE that during the upcoming Thanksgiving Break of Gustavus Adolphus College, the Museum will be closed (from Wednesday, November 27 through Sunday, December 1).  It will reopen with regular hours on Monday, December 2.

Eloquent Objects features African artworks recently bequeathed to the College from the estate of Ruth and Raymond Reister.  Ruth Reister served on the College’s Board of Trustees from 1994 to 2003 and was its chair from 2000 to 2002.  She and her husband Raymond were avid collectors of African art.

The exhibition texts for Eloquent Objects, which will also be included in the fully-illustrated brochure accompanies the exhibit, were written by African art specialist Martha G. Anderson.  Anderson has published extensively on African art and conducted extensive field research in Africa.  She recently retired after over 30 years teaching art history at Alfred University in upstate New York.  Anderson has a long relationship with Gustavus Adolphus College where her father, H. Milton Anderson, taught in the Department of Mathematics for over 30 years.

Watercolors in the Hillstrom Museum of Art features around 40 watercolors from the Museum’s permanent collection.  These range in date from about 1850 to 2007 and include many donations from Museum namesake Richard L. Hillstrom, as well as works from other sources such as the Dorothy Dehner Foundation for the Visual Arts in New York, which earlier this year donated a 1934 watercolor by American modernist painter and sculptor Dorothy Dehner (1901-1994).  Other artists represented in the exhibit include Alexander Calder (1898-1976), Wanda Gág (1894-1946), John Marin (1870-1953), and Reginald Marsh (1898-1954).

The landscapes, seascapes, still lifes, and figurative paintings on display are accompanied by a text, titled “Joy of Watercolor,” that considers the watercolor medium and that was contributed by Betsy Byers, Professor in the College’s Department of Art and History.  Byers, who joined the Gustavus faculty in 2011 and currently serves as chair of the department, works in watercolor and has taught it through her numerous painting classes for the College.

As with all programs and events of the Hillstrom Museum of Art, these exhibitions, the opening reception, and the Gallery Talk are free and open to the public.

Further information about the Museum can be found at gustavus.edu/hillstrom.

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