September 17 - October 31

Renewal: Printmakers from the New Northern Ireland

This exhibition showcases the work of eighteen of Northern Ireland's most significant contemporary printmakers, artists who are associated with the regions two most active printmaking workshops: Belfast Print Workshop and Seacourt Print Workshop. While some artists represented in this exhibition explore issues of memory and life experiences, relationships with family and friends, and images from antiquity, most are inspired, in some way, by nature. They seek to capture the expanses of the Northern Irish land- and seascapes, focusing on colors, forms and spaces in an attempt to convey the mood and richness of each setting. Cecilia Stephens takes inspiration for images such as Ridgeways "from the very essence" of what she sees, portraying the "rhythms and cadences of a particular location." The prints on display for this exhibition were created in the decade following the end of nearly thirty years of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. During this cultural renaissance artists commented on the changing nature of the country, its peole and its art, and their images' evocation of the country's richness continues to be compelling. Tour organized by International Arts & Artists, Washington D.C., in conjuntion with Belfast Print Workshop, Seacourt Print Workshop and The Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

November 12 - February 27

Faces of Time: Drawings and Prints by Old and Modern Masters

In his graduate school days, Juniata professor emeritus of philosophy Robert E. Wagoner spied a small etching by Alberto Giacometti in the window of a bookshop on Harvard Square and, on an impulse, bought it.Thus began a lifelong passion and fascination: “Many of the great artists in history were also etchers and engravers, and of course they make multiple images, and because they’re multiples they can be acquired by ordinary people—and I’ve never gotten over that!” As a collector Wagoner values the spontaneous quality he finds in works on paper, especially etchings and drawings—“There’s life in a hand-drawn line.” He values, too, the clarity of that line:  “Linearity,” he says, “is definitive.” Over the years Wagoner has further focused his interest upon images of the human face—each face, he says, is “a little drama”; each face “implies that there is a story here that could be told.” In this exhibition of prints and drawings selected from Professor Wagoner’s collection, in the faces of a boy drawn in red chalk in the 17th century, of two Blackfeet chiefs from the early 19th century, in more abstract renderings of the face by such contemporary artists as Francis Bacon, and Elizabeth Catlett—and in more than forty more images of faces from diverse times and places—are many stories waiting to be told.  

Research for this exhibition was supported in part by a Goodman Grant.  

Student Exhibition

Exhibiting work is an important goal for all artists, and the annual Student Exhibition presents the upcoming artists studying at Juniata with the opportunity to show their work in a professional museum setting.  As Juniata student Claire Williams notes, the show provides “one of the only chances for students to participate in a juried competition in the area.” Highlighting the range of media and techniques used in the studios throughout the academic year, the exhibition not only celebrates the accomplishments of our talented young artists, it also recognizes the efforts and dedication of our art professors Monika Malewska, Bethany Benson and Pat Howard.

Installation of previous Student Exhibition depicting the variety of media in which students work. Juniata College Museum of Art.

April 22 - September 4

Intimate Interactions: Bethany Benson

The museum is pleased to introduce the work of Bethany Benson, who came to Juniata in 2007 as assistant professor of art. Discovering as a child that working with clay “came naturally” to her, Benson has long loved “the capability of the material,” which in her hands assumes fluid and elegant forms.  Benson thinks of her ceramics as “3-D canvases” on which she makes designs meant to accentuate the form. But it is not just the eye, but all the senses, Benson says, that she wants to engage, and thus her fascination with cups, which can engage the senses of sight, touch, taste…. With senses stirred in this way, Benson says, the user of the cup thus enters into a kind of intimacy with its maker —“who has made the lip of that cup for your lip to fit on." It is Benson’s deliberate intent, she says, to create the possibility of these intimate interactions—“my pieces are not fully realized until they are completed by the viewer through use”--in a world in which technology and virtual encounters can seem to take the place of real, human ones. Maker, object, and user joined, Benson hopes, can mean “the revival of true interaction.”  

Bethany Benson, Orange Cup, white stoneware, soda fired, 2009. Image courtesy of Bethany Benson.