We popped in to see the Ansel Adams exhibit at the Smith College Museum of Art Friday evening.
The Ansel Adams exhibit was small, only 29 photographs, but these photographs are part of the museum’s permanent collection (nothing on loan from somewhere else). The first thing that strikes you about the images, is that they’re smaller than you would expect. Probably because we’re all so used to seeing his work on mass-produced posters. The thing that never reproduced well on those posters is the detail in the photographs – clouds, water droplets, rocks, tree bark, the detail is stunning.
Also on view are a few portraits by Adams (and one of Adams). He composed portraits as beautifully as he composed landscapes.
One thing that is really interesting to consider is the amount of equipment Adams would take with him to these sometimes remote locations – tripods, large-format cameras, etc.
Art trivia: Adams often used a microwave oven as part of his printing process.
Art tip: if you like Ansel Adams, you’ll also like the Italian photographer Vittorio Sella (1859-1943). Sella took stunning photographs of the Italian Alps. Black and white and the same sort of stunning detail, contrast, and gravity as Adams. Mt. Holyoke College Art Museum had a show of Sella’s work in 2000.
The Adams exhibit is on view until September 30th.
We also visited the Chace Galleries on the third floor, which contains 19th century American, early 20th-century American, and 19th-century French paintings.
Also on view on the third floor, in the tiny Ketcham Gallery, is the small exhibit about the restoration of the beautiful 16th-century German altarpiece, The Coronation of the Virgin, by Bartolomaus Bruyn, the Elder. This is a recent acquisition by the museum. The piece has recently undergone conservation which is detailed in the exhibit.
The Smith College Museum is really a gem, and features some really important and well-known pieces of art. It also has quite possibly the coolest restrooms in the area, works of art themselves (even the toilets are painted).
The museum admission is normally $5 per adult, but is free from 4pm-8pm on “Second Fridays.” Second Fridays also feature free lectures and other activites.
We’re looking forward the the next Second friday, October 12th, which features the opening reception for “Poetic Science: Bookworks by Daniel E. Kelm;” which will feature Kelm’s beautiful, innovative, and often wonderfully-unusual books (he’s a book-binder by trade).
