The Berkshire Museum will accentuate special exhibition galleries, climate controlled for the first summer in the institution's 105-year history, with an exhibition showcasing its diverse collection of art from the 17th century to the present.
Look at Us, on view July 1 through October 26, 2008, will feature approximately 40 paintings, drawings, photographs, and prints, by artists ranging from Ammi Phillips and Erastus Salisbury Field to John Singer Sargent and J.M. Whistler to Norman Rockwell, Grant Wood and Red Grooms.
Prior to the installation of climate control (HVAC), scheduled to be completed in March 2008, many works in the collection were kept in an air-conditioned storage space and were rarely, if ever, seen at the Berkshire Museum.
Interactive elements of the exhibition will include computer stations examining on-line pages as "self-portraits" and opportunity for visitors to make their own portraits.
Among the paintings from the Berkshire Museum collection included in Look at Us will be: Portrait of Henry Clay by Henry Inman, George Washington by Rembrant Peale; three portraits by Ammi Phillips; Norman Rockwell's portrait of President Eisenhower; Portrait of Mrs. Raphael Pumpelly by John Singer Sargent; Clarissa White by Erastus Salisbury Field; The Shepherdess by William Adolphe Bouguereau; and Portrait of General David Forman by Charles Wilson Peale.
Featured drawings will include Three Seated Figures by Henry Moore, Portrait of Thomas Carlyle by J. M. Whistler; Versinkende (Drowning in Despair) by Kaethe Kollwitz; and Saturday Night by Grant Wood. The watercolor Deux femmes dans un interieur by Edouard Vuillard will also be on view.
Prints on view will include two lithographs by Childe Hassam, Abstraction by Max Weber, the lithograph John the Baptist by Benjamin West, an untitled work by Leonard Baskin, the silkscreen Mango, Mango by Red Grooms.
Photographs will include civil war photographs by unknown photographers as well as works by Alfred Stieglitz, George Seeley, and Eduard Steichen.
Berkshire Museum founder Zenas Crane's interest in Native American culture, evidenced by the museum's vast collection of art and artifacts, will also be represented by portraits of Native Americans by Langodon Kihn and a group of watercolors of Hopi Indian dancers by an unknown Native American artist.
The climate control is scheduled to be completed in March as part of Phase II of the Berkshire Museum's building renovation, funded by the $9 million capital campaign, "A Wider Window." Phase II also includes the 3000-square-foot Feigenbaum Hall of Innovation, slated to opening March 2008. Fundraising in ongoing toward the final phase of the project, which includes improved visitor amenities and an education center. -- www.berkshiremuseum.org
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