Calendar of Events

Get an inside look at the Wadsworth’s newest Spotlight exhibition featuring Alexander Calder textiles from the collection, the first project formed by the Art Bridges Cohort Program. During this virtual program exhibition cocurators Erin Monroe and Laura Leonard discuss how these rarely seen textiles expand the story of modern design and reveal a range of influences on Calder’s materials and motifs, from early New England textiles to Latin and South American designs.

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Image: Inge Morath, Calder Painting Gouaches, Roxbury (detail), 1964. Photograph. Gift of the Estate of Inge Morath, 2002.12.1

Join Associate Curator of Contemporary Art Jared Quinton for a discussion about Justine Kurland’s iconic photographic series, Girl Pictures (1997–2002), recently acquired by the Wadsworth and currently on view in Avery Court. Quinton discusses the work’s Connecticut origins and artful interweaving of cinematic narratives and feminist politics. Keep an eye on your inbox for an email invitation and link to register.

Justine Kurland, Toys R Us, 1998, from Girl Pictures, printed 1997–2002. 69 unique C-prints. Purchased through the gift of Robinson A. and Nancy D. Grover and the Alexander A. Goldfarb Contemporary Art Acquisition Fund, 2022.2.5

Elizabeth Burgess, director of collections and research at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, discusses three letters connected to Frederick Douglass and held at the Center as well as his interactions with Stowe beginning in the 1850s. These powerful examples of celebrity abolitionist interplay illuminate central themes in the Wadsworth’s exhibition  I Am Seen… Keep an eye on your inbox for an invitation and link to register.

Image: Harriet Beecher Stowe letter to Frederick Douglass, July 9, 1851. Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, CT

Get an inside look at the Wadsworth’s newest Spotlight exhibition featuring an 1855 bureau on loan from the Columbia (SC) Museum of Art. Join Glenna Barlow, curator of education, for an introduction to Thomas Day, a master craftsman and free person of color in the pre-Civil War South. Hear how this exceptional bureau expands our understanding of cabinetry and culture in North Carolina. This Spotlight is the second in a series of exhibitions funded by the Art Bridges Cohort Program that expands the narrative of American art and material culture through multi-institutional exhibitions on display at the Wadsworth through 2025. 

Image: Sign outside Thomas Day’s studio. Photo by Jim Lamb

Special guest Jennifer Tonkovich, curator of drawings and prints at the Morgan Library & Museum, joins Linda Roth, Wadsworth curator of European decorative arts, in a conversation about the new book Morgan the Collector (2023).

The publication offers a series of essays illustrating a multifaceted portrait of J. Pierpont Morgan as a collector and pays tribute to Roth, who has dedicated much of her career to researching Morgan and the over 1,500 works from his collection now in the Wadsworth’s collection. Keep an eye on your inbox for an email invitation and registration link.

This Artful Conversation has been canceled.

Join Wadsworth Director Matthew Hargraves and Vanessa Sigalas, Associate Curator for Collections Research, for a virtual walk through Between Life & Death: Art and the Afterlife. Hear their lively insights (pun intended) into the exhibition and the objects from the collection that offer a glimpse into cultural responses to the mysterious passage from life to death. This virtual event will be streamed live from the exhibition concluding with a Q&A. Keep an eye on your inbox for an email invitation and registration link. Not a member yet? Learn about the perks and join today!