POUGHKEEPSIE, NY—The Sistah Power program will host its fifth “We Play Drums” celebration on the second floor of the Students’ Building on Friday, December 5, from 6:30 to 8:00 pm.  During the event, Vassar students and nine to 12-year-old girls from Poughkeepsie will present African dance and drumming pieces they learned during the fall semester and share their experiences participating in the program. The event is free and open to the public.

Showcasing African dance and drumming that the participants in the program have learned throughout the semester, the celebration also highlights the bond established between the young girls in the program and the Vassar students who lead activities with them throughout the semester.

Since the beginning of the fall semester, the Vassar students and young girls from the Girl Scouts of Dutchess County and different schools in the City of Poughkeepsie School District have rehearsed each Thursday and Friday at the Warring Magnet Academy in Poughkeepsie and at Vassar. Aside from drumming, participants in the program acted out stories, wrote and memorized empowering lyrics, and learned to bead and create masks.

“The program provides a feminist education on female development and community bonding to the Vassar students who mentor the young girls on empowerment while participating in the activities,” explained Jocelyn Tejeda, associate director for Campus Life/ALANA Programs at Vassar.

Gabrielle Phillip, member of the class of 2008, emphasized how the the Sistah Power program had helped her explore the power of friendship. “Throughout the last 10 weeks, I forged 20 wonderful friendships,” she said.

Sistah Power is a collaborative effort between the Vassar Campus Life Office, the Women’s Studies Program at Vassar College and the Girl Scouts of Dutchess County.

People with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact the Office of Campus Activities at (845) 437-5370. Directions to the Vassar campus are available at www.vassar.edu/directions.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

“Mama’s is sobbing over a photograph… [Her] shoulders are rounded, as if something is broken somewhere in the middle of her body, her straight grey-brown hair falls over her face, covering it so I cannot see her well. I wait for one second, but she doesn’t look up, so I leave feeling that I was intruding.”

Accomplished author and associate professor of Hispanic studies at Vassar, Mihai Grünfeld will read from his critically acclaimed memoir of a post-Holocaust childhood, Leaving – Memories of Romania, on Saturday, December 6. The reading, to be followed by a reception, will begin at 4:00 pm in the Aula in Ely Hall. Both are free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase at the reception.

Set in Cluj, the third largest city of Romania, where Grünfeld was born in 1951, Leaving recounts the author’s childhood as the son of impoverished Holocaust survivors.

As he grows up the narrator becomes increasingly aware of his parents’ isolation and untold histories. Gradually the story of an innocent child’s loving relationship with his parents evolves into a powerful tale of complex family dynamics shaped by dreams of escaping the debilitating poverty and repression in Communist Romania.

“In his touching memoir, Mihai Grünfeld takes us by the hand on a remarkable pilgrimage of survival, love, sadness, yearning, oppression and escape . . . It is a powerful narrative in its own right, but it is the sweet, unadorned, authentic voice of the writer that makes this book utterly unforgettable,” said Steven Lewis, bestselling author of Zen and the Art of Fatherhood.

Gerald Sorin, Distinguished Teaching Professor and director of Jewish Studies at SUNY New Paltz, similarly praised the memoir as “. . . comparable in richness to the writings of Eva Hoffman, Art Spiegelman, and Melvin Jules Bukiet.”

Grünfeld left Romania in January 1969 and began a search for a new home that took him to Czechoslovakia, Israel, Italy, Sweden, and Canada. While in Canada, he obtained a BA degree in Spanish and French at the University of Toronto.

The author eventually settled in the United States and obtained a doctorate in Latin American literature from the University of California at Berkeley.

At Vassar, Grünfeld researches modern Latin American poetry and the intersection between literature and the arts in between teaching in the Department of Hispanic Studies.

Additional information about Leaving – Memories of Romania, published by the Millrock Writers Collective, is available at www.millrockwriters.com or www.Leaving-MemoriesofRomania.com.

People with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact the Office of Campus Activities at (845) 437-5370. Directions to the Vassar campus are available at www.vassar.edu/directions.

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY—The fall season of Experimental Theater of Vassar College, presented by the drama department, will offer three productions this November and December that are free and open to the public. Please note that seating for most drama department productions is very limited and reservations are required. For information and reservations (available two weeks before performance), call the box office at 845-437-5584 or 5599 or visit http://drama.vassar.edu

First Lady Suite by Michael John LaChiusa

November 6 and 7, at 8:00 pm; November 8, at 3:00 pm
Three performances will be offered of the chamber musical, First Lady Suite, by Michael John LaChiusa, from November 6-8. The production will be directed by senior drama student Caitlin Crisp with musical direction by senior John Lagomarsino. The four vignettes –ranging from riotously funny to hauntingly lyrical – highlight celebrated First Ladies: Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Truman, Mamie Eisenhower, and Jacqueline Kennedy as well as the people surrounding them. The production is supported by The Joan Kostick Andrews ‘52 Fund for Musical Theatre (November 6 and 7, at 8:00 pm; November 8, at 3:00 pm, Martel Theater).

Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, translated by Paul Schmidt

November 20, 21, 22 at 7:00 pm (very limited seating)
Directed by Christopher Grabowski, there will be three performances of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, translated by Paul Schmidt, in the Powerhouse Theater on November 20-22. Of Chekhov’s masterpiece, Wilborn Hampton noted in the New York Times, that “the characters who inhabit Chekhov’s drawing rooms and gardens in provincial Russia speak more clearly to the eternal yearnings and frustrations of the human condition than those in a hundred contemporary plays.” Seating will be extremely limited for this performance, reservations are on a strictly first-come, first-served basis. (November 20-22, at 7:00 pm, Powerhouse Theater).

THE SKRIKER by Caryl Churchill

December 4, 5, 6, at 8:00 pm  (very limited seating)
British playwright Caryl Churchill’s THE SKRIKER will be the final production of the fall 2008 season of The Experimental Theater at Vassar, with three performances December 4-6. Directed by Vassar junior Nate Silver, this production is supported by The E.J. Safirstein ’83 Memorial Fund. In a review of a Public Theater production, Ben Brantley noted in the New York Times, that “Ms. Churchill, the author of Fen and Top Girls, has delivered her most unsettling indictment yet of an incurably diseased world. While it is also her most densely cerebral, difficult work, its enveloping chill isn’t just intellectual.” Please note that seating is extremely limited for this performance also and required reservations are on a strictly first-come, first-served basis. (December 4-6 at 8:00 pm, Martel Theater’s Heinlein Stage.)

Reservations for The Experimental Theater of Vassar College Drama Department performances are available in person through the Box Office located at the Powerhouse Theater. Box office hours are Monday through Friday, 1–5 pm.  The box office may also be reached by e-mailing boxoffice@vassar.edu or calling (845) 437-5584 or (845) 437-5599. (Please note the box office cannot respond on weekends.)

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations or information on accessibility should contact Campus Activities Office at (845) 437-5370 and/or Box office directly x5584. Without sufficient notice, appropriate space and/or assistance may not be available. Directions to the Vassar campus are available at www.vassar.edu/directions.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY—The Vassar Music Department will present a wide array of choral, orchestral, and chamber music programs during the months of November and December, culminating with the annual “A Service of Lessons and Carols,” on December 7 in the Chapel.

Unless otherwise noted, the concerts will take place in the Skinner Hall of Music at Vassar College. All the programs are free and open to the public, with seating on a first-come, first-served basis.

November 1-2, 2008

The month of November will open with a recital by the acclaimed Colorado Quartet, who will perform music of Beethoven, Ginastera, and Brahms. “This is a first-class ensemble that rises with panache to meet every challenge in the music,” noted the Washington Post. Violinists Julie Rosenfeld and D. Lydia Redding; violist Marka Gustavsson; and cellist Diane Chaplin form the Quartet that is recognized on four continents as one of the finest string quartets on the international scene. Winners of both the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, their performances are noted for their musical integrity, impassioned playing and lyrical finesse. In addition to the concert on Saturday, November 1, at 8:00 pm, the Colorado Quartet will also present a master class featuring students of the Music Department on Sunday, November 2, at 11:00 am.

The Vassar Camerata, conducted by Mary E. Alexander ‘09 and Emily Bookwalter ’10, will present a program on Sunday, November 2, at 3:00 pm. The Camerata, founded in 2004, is the college’s only student-run Baroque ensemble and performs all types of early music from before 1800. The ensemble includes approximately forty-five instrumentalists and singers, who rehearse and perform using eighteenth-century performance practices.

November 8-9, 2008

The following weekend on Saturday, November 8, at 1:30 pm, there will be a Senior Recital with Bradley Klein, piano. He will perform the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Scriabin. The Vassar College Women’s Chorus, conducted by Christine Howlett, will perform Carols and Lullabies: Christmas in the Southwest by Conrad Susa at 8:00 pm. The program will feature members of the music faculty: Frank Cassara, marimba; Terry Champlin, guitar; and Bridget Kibbey, harp. The Women’s Chorus is an auditioned ensemble that was formed in the fall of 1997, which revived a tradition from Vassar’s past in the context of Vassar’s present co-educational mission. Presenting concerts on and off-campus, the Women’s Chorus recently toured Puerto Rico and Turkey, and performed opera choruses with the Vassar College Orchestra and recording a live CD of their final concert.

The Vassar Mahagonny Ensemble, conducted by Mark Van Hare ‘10 and Ashley Alter ‘10, will perform works by Ives and Weill on Sunday, November 9, at 3:00 pm. Founded in 2000 with a performance of the Kurt Weill operetta, Mahagonny Songspiel, the ensemble is a completely student-run and dedicated to promoting the creativity of instrumentalists, singers, and composers interested in performing and writing contemporary classical music. The ensemble’s goal is to give a voice to unique works from the last 100 years that may otherwise not be heard at Vassar.

November 15-16, 2008

Members of REBEL Ensemble for Baroque Music, will return to campus following their September performance to present a master class, featuring students of the Music Department on Saturday, November 15, at 12:00 pm. That evening at 8:00 pm in the Vassar Chapel, the Vassar College Choir, conducted by Christine Howlett, will perform Fauré’s Requiem, Op. 48, as well music by Poulenc, Debussy, and Lauridsen. The Botticelli Chamber Players will join the Choir as special guest ensemble. The Vassar College Choir is an auditioned mixed choral ensemble of approximately fifty singers that performs on and off campus and recently toured in Italy and Germany. The members of the Botticelli Chamber Players live and perform in the Hudson Valley and are members of several orchestras, including the Hudson Valley Philharmonic.

Lively, energetic pieces written by popular composers will highlight the program of the Vassar College and Community Wind Ensemble, conducted by James Osborn, on Sunday, November 16, at 3:00 pm. The ensemble will perform Franz von Suppe’s “Poet and Peasant Overture; Tchaikovsky’s “Cossak Dance,” from The Slippers; Howard Hanson’s “Triumphal Ode”; and Frank Ticheli’s “Blue Shades.” Founded in 2001, the ensemble is comprised of 50 student and community musicians.

November 22-23, 2008

A Senior Recital by Nicholas Herbert, tenor, will feature music of Mozart, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, and Shostakovich. The program by Herbert, assisted by Gregg Michalak, piano, will begin at 4:00 pm on Saturday, November 22. On Saturday evening at 8:00 pm, the Vassar College Orchestra, conducted by Eduardo Navega, will perform the overture to Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga’s Los Esclavos Felices; Gabriel Fauré’s Pavane, Op. 50; Claude Debussy’s Dances Sacrée et Profane, featuring harpist Bridget Kibbey, an adjunct artist of the music faculty; and Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 4 in D Minor, Op. 120. A full symphony orchestra of about 60 students, the Vassar College Orchestra performs two or three concerts per semester of master works of the symphonic repertoire, which are selected to focus on the technical and musical development of the students.

On Sunday, November 23, at 3:00 pm, the Vassar College Madrigal Singers, directed by Drew Minter, will perform The Berlin Mass by Arvo Pärt, as well as works by Pärt, Britten, and Josquin des Près.  Gail Archer and Darren Motise, organists, will be featured. The ensemble includes singers whose musical and vocal skills are already significantly developed.

December 4-7, 2008
The Vassar College Music Colloquium will present a lecture by former music producer at the BBC, Misha Donat, on Thursday, December 4, at 5:00 pm in Thekla Hall. Donat will speak on the “Notions of Time in the Music of Elliott Carter.”

The Vassar College Jazz Ensemble, conducted by James Osborn, will perform on Friday, December 5, at 8:00 pm. Founded in 1984 by its conductor James Osborn, it is a 22 piece ensemble of student musicians playing saxophones, trumpets, trombones, piano, double bass, guitar, and drums.

Arielle Guterman, soprano, and Sasha Steinberg, baritone, will be featured in a Senior Recital on Saturday, December 6, at 4:00 pm. Richard Mogavero, piano, will assist Guterman and Steinberg.

The concluding concert in the 2008 series will be on Sunday, December 7, at 7:00 pm, in the Vassar Chapel with the annual A Service of Lessons and Carols. Advent and Christmas readings will be given by students, faculty, administration, and staff of Vassar College. The service will include performances by the Vassar College Choir, Women’s Chorus, Madrigal Singers, and Capella Festiva Chamber and Treble Choir; Christine Howlett, Drew Minter, and Susan Bialek, conductors.

December 13, 2008

The final senior recital offered in the 2008 series will be on Saturday, December 13, at 1:30 pm. Soprano Allison Ross, assisted by Miriam Charney, will perform works by Purcell, Bach, Mozart, Schubert, and Donizetti.

For additional information and details on all Vassar College Department of Music concerts, please call (845) 437-7294 or visit the website http://music.vassar.edu/concerts. The Skinner Hall of Music at Vassar College is wheelchair-accessible. People with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact the Office of Campus Activities at (845) 437-5370. Free parking is available at Skinner Hall, and the campus’s adjoining south parking lot. Directions to the Vassar campus are available at www.vassar.edu/directions.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

Concert Schedule:

Please note that all programs are subject to change.

Saturday, November 1, at 8:00 pm

Colorado Quartet
Music of Beethoven, Ginastera, and Brahms
Skinner Hall of Music, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

Sunday, November 2, at 11:00 am

Master Class with members of the Colorado Quartet
Featuring students of the Music Department
Skinner Hall of Music, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

Sunday, November 2, at 3:00 pm

Vassar Camerata
Mary E. Alexander ‘09 and Emily Bookwalter ’10, conductors
Skinner Hall of Music, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

Saturday, November 8, at 1:30 pm

Senior Recital: Bradley Klein, piano
Music of Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Scriabin
Skinner Hall of Music, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

Saturday, November 8, at 8:00 pm

Vassar College Women’s Chorus
Christine Howlett, conductor
Carols and Lullabies: Christmas in the Southwest by Conrad Susa, featuring members of the music faculty: Frank Cassara, marimba; Terry Champlin, guitar; and Bridget Kibbey, harp.
Skinner Hall of Music, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

Sunday, November 9, at 3:00 pm

Vassar Mahagonny Ensemble
Mark Van Hare ‘10 and Ashley Alter ‘10, conductors
Music of Ives and Weill
Skinner Hall of Music, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

Saturday, November 15, at 12:00 pm

Master Class with members of the ensemble REBEL
Featuring students of the Music Department
Chapel, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

Saturday, November 15, at 8:00 pm

Vassar College Choir
Christine Howlett, conductor
Fauré’s Requiem, Op. 48, with music by Poulenc, Debussy, and Lauridsen. With guest ensemble, The Botticelli Chamber Players
Chapel, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

Sunday, November 16, at 3:00 pm

Vassar College and Community Wind Ensemble
James Osborn, conductor
Skinner Hall of Music, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

Saturday, November 22, at 4:00 pm

Senior Recital: Nicholas Herbert, tenor
Assisted by Gregg Michalak, piano
Music of Mozart, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, and Shostakovich
Skinner Hall of Music, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

Saturday, November 22, at 8:00 pm

Vassar College Orchestra
Eduardo Navega, conductor
Skinner Hall of Music, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

Sunday, November 23, at 3:00 pm

Vassar College Madrigal Singers
Drew Minter, director
The Berlin Mass by Arvo Pärt, with other works by Pärt, Britten, and Josquin des Près. With Gail Archer and Darren Motise, organists.
Skinner Hall of Music, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

Thursday, December 4, at 5:00 pm

Vassar College Music Colloquium
“Notions of Time in the Music of Elliott Carter”
Misha Donat, lecturer
Thekla Hall

Friday, December 5, at 8:00 pm

Vassar College Jazz Ensemble
James Osborn, conductor
Skinner Hall of Music, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

Saturday, December 6, at 4:00 pm

Senior Recital: Arielle Guterman, soprano, and Sasha Steinberg, baritone
Assisted by Richard Mogavero, piano
Skinner Hall of Music, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

Sunday, December 7, at 7:00 pm

A Service of Lessons and Carols
Vassar College Choir, Women’s Chorus, Madrigal Singers, and Capella Festiva Chamber and Treble Choir
Christine Howlett, Drew Minter, Susan Bialek, conductors
Chapel, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

Saturday, December 13, at  1:30 pm

Senior Recital:  Allison Ross, soprano.
Assisted by Miriam Charney.
Music of Purcell, Bach, Mozart, Schubert, and Donizetti.
Skinner Hall of Music, Vassar College
845-437-7294 or music.vassar.edu/concerts

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY—The Choir of Queens’ College, Cambridge University, considered among the best mixed choirs in England, will perform during a special concert to benefit Community Works on Wednesday, December 10, at Vassar.

The benefit concert will feature sacred and secular choral favorites and will begin at 6:00 pm in Skinner Hall of Music. On behalf of Community Works, which provides financial assistance to local not-for-profit organizations, there is a suggested donation of $10. Admission and seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

“The presence of the Choir of Queens’ College at Vassar came about because of the friendship between Lord Eatwell and Barbara Vogelstein, a member of Vassar’s Board of Trustees. During a conversation, Lord Eatwell mentioned to Ms. Vogelstein his wish that the choir might perform a benefit concert for a local charity while they were in New York City,” noted John Mihaly, director of development for regional programs at Vassar. “Instead, Ms. Vogelstein wondered if Vassar might be able to take advantage of this wonderful generosity to benefit our Hudson Valley community, and put Lord Eatwell in communication with the college.”

The program will open with remarks from Catharine Hill, President of Vassar College, and Lord Eatwell, President of Queens’ College Cambridge. The concert will include performances by the Choir of Queens’ College of choral works by J.S. Bach, William Byrd, Edward Elgar, Giovanni Gabrielli, William Harris, Charles Villiers Stanford, John Tavener, Thomas Tallis, among others. Concluding the program, the Choir will join with the Vassar College Madrigal Singers for performances of Herbert Howell’s “A Spotless Rose,” and the traditional song, “Tomorrow shall be my dancing day.”

ABOUT THE CHOIR OF QUEENS’ COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

The Choir of Queens’ College is a mixed-voice choir comprised of singers drawn from across the University of Cambridge, founded in 1448. Over the last decade the choir has established a reputation for the excellence and freshness of its interpretations and its commitment to a wide range of choral repertoire, sacred and secular. Madeleine Lovell serves as director of music, Alexander Breedon as senior organ scholar, and Jemima Stephenson as junior organ scholar.

The tradition of choral singing in Queens’ College’s historic chapels is a long one, and in addition to liturgical duties - leading worship according to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and occasional festal services - the choir maintains a heavy schedule of concerts, tours, and recordings.

The choir has a continued history as a promoter of contemporary music, dating from when Charles Villiers Stanford (himself a Queens’ Organ Scholar in 1870) wrote a setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, The Queens’ Service, for the choir, in 1874.

The choir’s current tour of the Northeast will include performances in Manhattan at the Harvard Club and Trinity Church Wall Street, as well as Harvard Memorial Church in Cambridge, MA. Prior European tours have included performances in Germany, Japan, Italy, France, Switzerland, Spain, and the Channel Islands.

ABOUT THE VASSAR COLLEGE MADRIGAL SINGERS

The Madrigal Singers, directed by Drew Minter, is a select ensemble of singers whose musical and vocal skills are already significantly developed.  To audition, singers in their first- or second-years must first be a member of one of the two larger choirs; the Vassar College Choir or the Vassar College Women’s Chorus. The group performs a wide-ranging repertoire, but it is centered in the early music (medieval through Baroque) and contemporary repertoires. 

ABOUT THE COMMUNITY WORKS CAMPAIGN

Funded by donations from employees and students of Vassar College, Community Works is a philanthropic campaign whose mission is to provide financial assistance to local not-for-profit organizations. Since its inception in 2001, Community Works has raised more than $500,000 to fund 27 different institutions in the Hudson Valley. A committee of staff, administrators, faculty, and students selects recipients each year.

Last year’s campaign raised more than $100,000. “This year the need is anticipated to be much higher with the jobless rate in Dutchess and Ulster counties at a 14-year high,” stated Jeffrey Schneider, director of the Community Works Campaign for 2009. “Already, local food banks and other social service agencies are seeing a 15 to 20 percent increase in people seeing assistance and that number is expected to grow.” Ten local organizations have been chosen as recipients for the 2009 campaign. Additional information is available at http://communityworks.vassar.edu.

The Skinner Hall of Music at Vassar College is wheelchair-accessible. People with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact the Office of Campus Activities at (845) 437-5370. Free parking is available at Skinner Hall, and the campus’s adjoining south parking lot. Directions to the Vassar campus are available at www.vassar.edu/directions.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY — Mary-Kay Lombino, the Emily Hargroves Fisher ’57 and Richard B. Fisher Curator at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, is the recipient of a prestigious fellowship from the Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL). This is the second-year of fellowships awarded for a program whose contention is that “the most successful new museum directors of the future should be chosen from the ranks of today’s curators.” Ten outstanding curators from art museums and institutions across the United States have been selected to participate in the 2009 CCL fellowship program.

“It is very gratifying that Mary-Kay Lombino and the museum program at Vassar has been recognized by the Center for Curatorial Leadership,” noted James Mundy, director of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. “Cultivating curatorial talent for a leadership role in America’s art museums is essential, keeping the focus of our collective mission on the art and its intellectual and social relevance.”

Cofounded by Agnes Gund, president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art, and Elizabeth Easton, the former chair of the Department of European Painting at the Brooklyn Museum, the Center for Curatorial Leadership will train curators to assume leadership positions in museums. “The members of the Class of 2009 exemplify the high values and priceless abilities of the finest curators across the United States,” Agnes Gund stated. “They are already leaders in their own fields. With CCL’s help, they will prove their capacity for leadership across the board.”

During the six-month course of the fellowship, Ms. Lombino and her nine colleagues will also participate in a mentoring program with directors and trustees from other museums. In their acceptance letter, the Center recognized Ms. Lombino’s “unique perspective, experience, and talent” as valuable assets with which to navigate the changing landscape of curatorial practice.

A panel of leading museum directors selected the CCL class of 2009. The program will begin on January 5, 2009, with instruction by faculty from the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University as well as top museum directors, administrators, and trustees from around the country. In addition there is a one-week residency at another institution, as well as a team assignment. All costs are fully funded by CCL.

Benjamin Genocchio noted in the New York Times article, “Boot Camp for Curators Who Want the Top Job,” of the first year of the fellows program that: “it is easier to teach a passionate curator to be a leader than it is to teach a professional manager to be passionate about the presentation and display of great art, the assumption being that you need both to be a good director.”

ABOUT MARY-KAY LOMBINO

Mary-Kay Lombino was appointed to the position of Emily Hargroves Fisher ’57 and Richard B. Fisher Curator in 2006. During this time at Vassar, Ms. Lombino has curated several notable exhibitions, including Off the Shelf: New Form in Contemporary Artists’ Books; Out of Shape: Stylistic Distortions of the Human Form in Art from the Logan Collection; and Facebook: Image of People in Photographs from the Permanent Collection. Her current exhibition, Excerpt: Selections from the Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn Collection, is the first public showing of the collection of private art collector and independent curator, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn.

Before coming to the Art Center, Ms. Lombino was the curator of exhibits at the University Art Museum (UAM), California State University, Long Beach, where she began in 1999. Before joining the UAM, she served as assistant curator at UCLA Hammer Museum for five years. Ms. Lombino received a BA in Art History from the University of Richmond and an MA in Art History and Museum Studies from the University of Southern California in 1995. She has also organized solo shows for numerous artists including Phil Collins, Ken Price, Amy Myers, Gay Outlaw, Euan Macdonald, Alice Könitz, Candida Höfer, and Mungo Thomson.

In 2005, Ms. Lombino received a Getty Curatorial Research Fellowship to study work by the late California Symbolist/Surrealist painter Dorr Bothwell.

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR CURATORIAL LEADERSHIP

The Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL), cofounded by Agnes Gund and Elizabeth Easton in 2007, seeks to identify within the curatorial ranks individuals who have the potential to become leaders and will help them become curators who not only take charge of the art in their care, but who are also capable of assuming the leadership responsibilities essential to directing a museum.

CCL is founded on the belief that curatorial knowledge and expertise are fundamental to art museums and ought to be at the heart of museum leadership. In a widely heralded decision, The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently endorsed this principle by its appointment of curator Thomas P. Campbell to be its next director. With many other museums throughout the United States currently seeking directors, the CCL program makes a vital contribution toward ensuring that curators have the administrative and managerial skills to lead institutions.

Commenting on the success of CCL’s inaugural year in 2008, Ms. Easton stated, “The pilot program galvanized an interest throughout the field in the professional development of curators, raising awareness that curatorial leadership at the highest level of museums is not only possible but desirable.” She noted that, “members of the Class of 2008 have enjoyed promotions and assumed new roles, demonstrating CCL’s short-term success. The goal, however, is to have a long-term impact, not just on isolated museums but on the entire field.”

Ms. Gund has made a commitment to see the program through its first five years, and Eugene Thaw has pledged a three-year contribution through the Thaw Charitable Trust. Philippe de Montebello, director, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and many other museum directors from across the United States have pledged their time, enthusiasm and support.

In addition to Ms. Gund and Mr. de Montebello, members of the the CCL Advisory Committee include: William Griswold, director, Morgan Library and Museum, New York; Kathy Halbreich, associate director, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Timothy Potts, director, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Kimerly Rorschach, director, Nasher Museum at Duke University, North Carolina; Axel Rüger, director, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Rt. Hon. Lord Smith of Finsbury, former Secretary of Culture for the United Kingdom and director of the Clore Leadership Programme, London; Ann Tenenbaum, trustee, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Studio Museum, Harlem, New York; Susana Torruela-Leval, director emerita, El Museo del Barrio, New York; and Darren Walker, vice president, Foundation Initiatives, The Rockefeller Foundation, New York.

Additional information is available at www.curatorialleadership.org.

ABOUT THE FRANCES LEHMAN LOEB ART CENTER

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center was founded in 1864 as the Vassar College Art Gallery. The current 36,400-square-foot facility, designed by Cesar Pelli and named in honor of the new building’s primary donor, opened in 1993. The Lehman Loeb Art Center’s collections chart the history of art from antiquity to the present and comprise almost 18,000 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, and glass and ceramic wares. Notable holdings include the Warburg Collection of Old Master prints, an important group of Hudson River School paintings given by Matthew Vassar at the college’s inception, and a wide range of works by major European and American 20th- century painters. Vassar was the first U.S. college founded with a permanent art collection and gallery, and at any given time, the Permanent Collection Galleries of the Art Center feature approximately 350 works from Vassar’s extensive collections.

Admission to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is free. The art center is open to the public Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, 10:00 am–5:00 pm; Thursday, 10:00 am–9:00 pm; and Sunday, 1:00–5:00 pm. Located at the entrance to the historic Vassar College campus, the Art Center can be reached within minutes from other Mid-Hudson cultural attractions, such as Dia:Beacon, the Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt national historic sites and homes, and the Vanderbilt mansion. The Art Center is wheelchair accessible. For more information, the public may call (845) 437-5632 or visit fllac.vassar.edu.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY—The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $1.2 million challenge grant to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, to help create and support a new postdoctoral position for a Coordinator of Academic Affairs. The grant is the largest to date received by the Art Center, according to James Mundy, the museum’s Anne Hendricks Bass Director.

“By helping to endow this key staff addition, the Mellon Foundation will allow us to develop broader collaborations with our Vassar faculty colleagues, thereby expanding the use of our valuable collections across many academic disciplines and encouraging interdisciplinary studies,” said Mundy.

An earlier grant from the Mellon Foundation, received in 1996, enabled the Art Center to take steps towards deepening connections with faculty who used works of art in their teaching, curated exhibitions, presented gallery talks, and collaborated in other ways with Art Center staff.

These initiatives did enrich the college’s curriculum, but as demand for use of the collections has increased over the last eight years, the Center’s small existing staff is unable to respond adequately to the growing needs for academic uses of works of art. Indeed, the Center’s current Coordinator of Public Education and Information is responsible not only for K-12 and public education, but also for all communications with faculty at the college.  By establishing a new position totally dedicated to the academic agenda, the Center will be in a position to serve the college’s faculty and student community far more effectively. 

“Since the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center opened in 1993, we have reaffirmed our central mission of assuring that original works of art play a vital role in the liberal arts education of Vassar,” Mundy continued. “Our exhibitions and programs have steadily increased, further improving access to the collection for both the college community and the general public.  With the appointment of a Mellon Coordinator for Academic Affairs, our position within the college and with the Hudson Valley community will continue to grow.”

To match the $1.2 million challenge grant, Vassar must raise an additional $750,000 over the next three years. The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center expects to hire its new Coordinator of Academic Affairs at a level equivalent to that of at least an assistant professor in the college and hopes to hire the first occupant by the fall of 2009.

ABOUT THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION PROGRAM FOR ART MUSEUMS

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation program for art museums is designed to help excellent institutions build and sustain their capacity to undertake serious scholarship on their permanent collections; to preserve these collections; and to share the results of their work in appropriate ways with scholarly and other audiences. The art conservation program concentrates largely on advanced training for future generations of conservators, but it also undergirds fundamental work in developing fields such as photograph conservation and conservation science – areas of increasing importance to conservation as a whole. Both programs, therefore, are engaged in supporting basic research intended to enable curators, conservators, and other professionals to devote intensive study to the objects in their care, and to make their knowledge and professional expertise available to others in new as well as in more traditional ways.

ABOUT THE FRANCES LEHMAN LOEB ART CENTER

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center was founded in 1864 as the Vassar College Art Gallery. The current 36,400-square-foot facility, designed by Cesar Pelli and named in honor of the new building’s primary donor, opened in 1993. The Lehman Loeb Art Center’s collections chart the history of art from antiquity to the present and comprise almost 18,000 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, and glass and ceramic wares.

The museum’s notable holdings include the Warburg Collection of Old Master prints, an important group of Hudson River School paintings given by Matthew Vassar at the college’s inception, and a wide range of works by major European and American 20th- century painters. Vassar was the first U.S. college founded with a permanent art collection and gallery, and at any given time, the Permanent Collection Galleries of the Art Center feature approximately 350 works from Vassar’s extensive collections.

Admission to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is free, and it is open to the public Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, 10:00 am–5:00 pm; Thursday, 10:00 am–9:00 pm; and Sunday, 1:00–5:00 pm. The Art Center is wheelchair accessible. For more information, the public may call (845) 437-5632 or visit fllac.vassar.edu.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY – Vassar College has been awarded a four-year $630,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Liberal Arts Colleges Program, to advance the study of South Asia in the college’s Environmental Studies program. The Mellon Foundation’s key support will be for a new tenured scholar of the environmental history of South Asia, and its grant will also help make possible additions to the Environmental Studies curriculum, new library resources, research, and related travel.

Vassar takes a multidisciplinary approach to environmental studies, involving the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, and approximately 40 professors from virtually every department on campus.

The new Vassar faculty member will be based in the history department, and will teach courses cross-listed in the curriculum for environmental studies, history, and Asian studies – including an introductory course on environmental history, an intermediate course on the history of India, and an advanced seminar on South Asian environmental history.

In addition to seeking expertise in the history of environmental movements in South Asia, Vassar will also be looking for a scholar whose interests may include the history of agriculture and land tenure, dam building and other large-scale environmental interventions, as well as colonial or national policies on medicine or disease control.

“The history department has long needed a South Asian historian, and we are delighted that the Mellon grant gives us ‘two for one’ by enabling us to hire a historian in the cutting-edge field of environmental history,” said Rebecca Edwards, chair of the department of history, a member of the Environmental Studies faculty, and a lead author of the Mellon grant proposal.

ABOUT VASSAR’S PROGRAM IN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

The program explores relationships between people and their environments -- natural, built by man, and social. As part of that exploration, the curriculum describes and analyzes natural systems, histories of interspecies and species-environment relationships, aesthetic portrayals of nature, and ethical issues raised by human participation in the natural environment. Graduates of the program go on to pursue urban ecology, environmental policy, public health, environmental education, consulting, agriculture, and journalism, among a variety of professional directions.

ABOUT THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES PROGRAM

More than 125 liberal arts colleges benefit either through direct grants from the Liberal Arts Colleges Program, or support the program provides through various consortia and associations. Like the foundation’s other higher education grant programs, the Liberal Arts Colleges Program regards the humanities, arts, and humanistic social sciences as its primary domain of interest. In general, the program’s grants are aimed at providing additional research and professional opportunities for faculty members, strengthening the academic infrastructure of the liberal arts college, and assisting colleges as they review and refurbish their curricular offerings.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY — In November and December, the Russian Studies Department at Vassar will present a series of events, including a lecture, film screening, and an exhibition, around the theme: “PETROPOLIS! St. Petersburg Days at Vassar.” Please note that all the events, organized in conjunction with Vassar’s Study Away Program in St. Petersburg, are free and open to the public.

Exhibition: Reflections of Petropolis

November 19 – December 19
The multi-media exhibition, Reflections of Petropolis, will open on Wednesday, November 19, and continue on view through Friday, December 19, in the James W. Palmer ’90. Bringing together various aspects of images of St. Petersburg, the exhibition will feature book illustrations, photography, and video, to original works by St. Petersburg artists, including Pavel Kondratyev (1902–85), Boris Kalaushin (1929–99), Vladimir Zhukov (b. 1933), Ivan Govorkov (b. 1948), Elena Gubanova (b. 1960), Nikolai Firtich (b. 1961), Aleksei Kulbin (b. 1961). A reception will be held in the gallery on Wednesday, November 19, from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm.  The gallery hours are Mondays through Fridays, 11:00 am to 6:00 pm; Saturdays and Sundays from 12:00 to 6:00 pm.

Lecture: The Spell of St. Petersburg: The City and its Metaphysics in Art and Culture

November 19 at 3:30 pm
The series will open with the lecture, “The Spell of St. Petersburg: The City and its Metaphysics in Art and Culture,” on Wednesday, November 19, at 3:30 pm in Taylor Hall (room 203). Nikolai Firtich, assistant professor of Russian studies and director of the Vassar Program in St. Petersburg, will examine the dazzling cultural mythology associated with St. Petersburg.

Film screening: The Russian Ark

November 20 at 8:00 pm
On Thursday, November 20, there will be a screening of the film, The Russian Ark (2003). Director: Alexander Sokurov (Russia), Camera: Tilman Büttner (Germany). A cinematic reflection on Russian history, The Russian Ark was shot in a single take lasting 97 minutes and involving some 1,200 actors as the camera moved through the splendid rooms of the Hermitage and the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. Dan Ungurianu, associate professor and director of the Russian Studies Department will introduce Russian Ark, which will begin at 8:00 pm in Blodgett Auditorium.

Please note that a concert, originally scheduled for November 21, will be postponed to a future date.

ABOUT VASSAR’S STUDY AWAY PROGRAM IN ST. PETERSBURG

The St. Petersburg program, an innovative one-semester-long study abroad program, is designed to take advantage of the fabulously rich collections of art held in the museums of St. Petersburg. The program is unique in allowing Vassar students virtually unlimited access to the Hermitage Museum with its collection of Western art that is rivaled only by such famous sites as the British Museum or the Louvre. The students are granted equally unrestricted access to the Russian Museum, a treasure-trove of Russian art ranging from medieval icons to Malevich and beyond. Classes are held under the tutelage of Hermitage curators and professors of the city’s European University.

The program offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity both for Russian majors and students interested in art history. No previous knowledge of Russian language is required. Though designed primarily for Vassar Office of International Programs students, the program is also open to seniors, undergraduate students from other institutions as well as to graduate and special students. The program will be offered every fall semester. (http://internationalprograms.vassar.edu/programs/russia_stpetersburg.html)

ABOUT THE GALLERY

Situated between the North Atrium and the Retreat cafeteria, the James W. Palmer III Gallery is at the heart of the College Center. Constructed in 1996, the gallery was named and endowed by the Palmer family in 2000 in memory of their son James, a member of the class of 1990. Serving as an exhibition space for artwork created within and beyond the Vassar community, the gallery displays art of diverse mediums, themes, and origins.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations at Vassar should contact the Office of Campus Activities at (845) 437-5370. Without sufficient notice, appropriate space and/or assistance may not be available. Directions to the Vassar campus are available at www.vassar.edu/directions.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY — As a number of key works from the permanent collection are on tour in a major exhibition in Japan, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (FLLAC) curators decided to review rarely seen paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and sculptures in the museum’s storage vaults in order to present a sampling of works that have not been on view in recent years. In addition to the works now on display in the Permanent Collection Galleries, this new exhibition gives viewers the chance to further their knowledge of the almost 18,000 objects in the permanent collection of the Art Center.

From November 7, 2008, through January 4, 2009, the exhibition Revealed Anew: Selections from the Permanent Collection will present approximately 40 of these important works and will be on display in the Prints and Drawings Galleries of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. Co-curating the exhibition are Patricia Phagan, the Philip and Lynn Straus Curator of Prints and Drawings, and Mary-Kay Lombino, Emily Hargroves Fisher ’57 and Richard B. Fisher Curator.

“The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar has one of the earliest major Hudson River School painting collections in the country,” stated Phagan. “Beginning with Matthew Vassar’s initial gift of a few hundred American and Hudson River School paintings and 3,000 English drawings and prints, the permanent collection has remained a vital part of teaching at the college.”

In the years since Matthew Vassar established the college’s collection, other large gifts, Phagan noted, “have stimulated and provided new directions for the permanent collection and for teaching. For instance, Italian baroque paintings given in the early 20th century, and the Felix Warburg Collection of Old Master Prints given in the early 1940s made possible the study of high-quality original works of art from these periods on campus. Also in the 20th century, numerous gifts of modern works by Vassar alumnae/i enriched the collection further, providing new and vital areas of study for students, scholars, and the public at large.

Even photography, a new medium in the 19th century, was part of Matthew Vassar’s initial gift in 1864, and through steady gifts and purchases photography now numbers almost 3,000 works in the permanent collection.

Revealed Anew pulls from these sources and others, concentrating on late 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century American and European art. Several of the works are drawings or prints, which, due to their light-sensitive nature, can only be displayed for short periods of time. Many other works have not been presented in recent years because of space limitations in the galleries or because of other curatorial priorities. Phagan emphasized that, “this is an opportunity for viewers to delve further into the many-layered collection of the Art Center and discover its diverse depths.”

Richard Westall’s heroic Ajax Defying the Lightning, that Phagan noted is a “deft study in opaque watercolor. It was preparatory to a print published for a book of illustrative plates of Shakespeare by the prolific English publisher John Boydell.”  The watercolor will be accompanied by an early, vibrant, graphite and chalk study by Benjamin West for Lot Fleeing from Sodom, of 1810. West’s oil on panel, for which this work is the study, is now in the permanent collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts. West was an American expatriate artist and director of the Royal Academy in London when the work was executed.

The Art Center’s 20th-century collection will be represented with works including Pablo Picasso’s powerful print, Blind Minotaur, of 1934, from the Vollard Suite, rendered during a desperate period in the artist’s personal life.

Also in the exhibition will be the snowy Winter View from Newburgh, of 1856, by Hudson River School painter Louis Rémy Mignot, and two etchings, Sir Francis Seymour Haden’s velvety A Sunset in Ireland, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s Greenwich Pensioner, part of the major Warburg Collection donated to the college in 1941.

Artist Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin, a member of Vassar's undergraduate class of 1870, gave to the college her Study of a Head, an elegant oil painting. Coffin, an American realist painter based in Brooklyn and Nantucket, studied drawing and painting at Vassar with Henry Van Ingen, the college’s first professor of art. Notably, Coffin went on to receive from Vassar the first master of arts degree in fine art in America, with her thesis, “The Progress of Art in Ancient Times.” She also trained in painting and drawing at The Hague in the Netherlands and with Thomas Eakins at the Brooklyn Art Association and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Exhibition reception and curatorial tour

Free and open to the public, part of the "Late Night at the Lehman Loeb" series.

Thursday, November 13, 6:00 pm
Exhibition tour led by co-curator Patricia Phagan
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie
(845) 437-5632, http://fllac.vassar.edu

About the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center was founded in 1864 as the Vassar College Art Gallery. The current 36,400-square-foot facility, designed by Cesar Pelli and named in honor of the new building's primary donor, opened in 1993. The Lehman Loeb Art Center's collections chart the history of art from antiquity to the present and comprise almost 18,000 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, and glass and ceramic wares. Notable holdings include the Warburg Collection of Old Master prints, an important group of Hudson River School paintings given by Matthew Vassar at the college's inception, and a wide range of works by major European and American 20th- century painters. Vassar was the first U.S. college founded with a permanent art collection and gallery, and at any given time, the Permanent Collection Galleries of the Art Center feature approximately 350 works from Vassar's extensive collections.

Admission to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is free. The art center is open to the public Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, 10:00 am–5:00 pm; Thursday, 10:00 am–9:00 pm; and Sunday, 1:00–5:00 pm. Located at the entrance to the historic Vassar College campus, the Art Center can be reached within minutes from other Mid-Hudson cultural attractions, such as Dia:Beacon, the Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt national historic sites and homes, and the Vanderbilt mansion. The Art Center is wheelchair accessible. For more information, the public may call (845) 437-5632 or visit http://fllac.vassar.edu.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY—The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center will present Faith and Fantasy in Outsider Art from the Permanent Collection, a selection of more than 50 paintings, drawings, sculptures, and mixed-media works by 39 “outsider” or self-taught artists, which will be on view in the Prints and Drawings Galleries from February 13 through April 26, 2009.

Curated by Mary-Kay Lombino, The Emily Hargroves Fisher ’57 and Richard B. Fisher Curator at the Art Center, Faith and Fantasy will feature a wide-selection of media, drawn from the 110 works recently given to the Art Center by alumna Pat O’Brien Parsons (Vassar College class of 1951). “The Art Center is committed to bringing this work to our audience and placing it in the context of art history by displaying it in thematic exhibitions that highlight the most relevant work in the collection,” Lombino said.

All the artists of Faith and Fantasy have been active within the last 20 years and come from a range of geographic, economic, and cultural backgrounds. The exhibition includes work by Minnie Adkins, Aaron Birnbaum, Thorton Dial, Howard Finster, Menno Krant, Dwight MacIntosh, John Patrick McKenzie, Donald Mitchell, Martín Ramírez, Mose Tolliver, and Inez Nathaniel Walker, along with work by several lesser-known artists.

Faith and Fantasy addresses common themes often found in work by “outsider” artists, including biblical and religious topics, fictional narratives developed from the artists’ imaginations and rich fantasies, as well as allegorical use of human figures.

“Several of the artists in Faith and Fantasy use imagery that reflects their own intensely personal religious beliefs,” noted Lombino. “They sometimes refer to spiritual visions they have experienced, while at other times creating their own interpretations of familiar themes such as Adam and Eve. The common focus on legend, myth, dreams, and fantasies can be seen as evidence of the artists’ alienation from family and community, thus further defining them as outsiders.” 

One of the three galleries will be devoted to religious-themed works, including various depictions of Adam and Eve. One of these works is a large genre painting by 85-year-old Alabama artist Myrtice Snead West. “Like so many outsider artists, Ms. West began to make art after facing a tragedy in her life,” noted Lombino. “Other biblical themes are depicted in the colored-pencil drawings of Egyptian-born shoemaker Adolf Cattalinich, who learned to draw while serving a three-year prison sentence.”

“As with many self-taught artists, they began their art practice outside of the mainstream venues of contemporary art, and several of them have moved steadily into a broader spectrum of acceptance and appreciation,” explained Ms. Lombino. “They often demonstrate an all-consuming devotion to art-making and a tendency to create extremely personal and imaginative narratives, resulting in artwork that is highly individualized and idiosyncratic.”

ABOUT PAT O’BRIEN PARSONS

Ms. Parsons, whose donated works will be featured Faith and Fantasy, is a New York collector and cofounder of the gallery, Webb and Parsons. The gallery was at the forefront for presenting outsider art within the contemporary art market. Ms. Parsons noted that in the 1970s, “Webb and Parsons – a contemporary American art gallery – just off the staid, village green in the Revolutionary village of Bedford, New York, [the gallery is now based in Burlington, VT] annually presented an exhibition of work by self-taught creators.” She additionally remarked that, “Our artistic spectrum went from trained artists like Judy Pfaff, Elizabeth Murray, and Joan Mitchell to Inez, an inmate in the local prison, Sister Gertrude, Joseph Yoakum, and the many others who now have a become almost household names.”

The opening reception for Faith and Fantasy will take place on Friday, February 13, 2009, at 6:30pm and will include the lecture “Through the Lens of Language: Self Taught Artists from Dubuffet to Today,” at 5:30 pm by Brooke Davis Anderson, director and curator of the Contemporary Center and director of the Henry Study Center at the American Folk Art Museum. Ms. Anderson has written and lectured extensively on American art, in particular African-American art and the work of contemporary, self-taught artists.

EXHIBITION RECEPTION AND LECTURE

(free and open to the public)

Friday, February 13, 5:30 pm

Lecture: “Through the Lens of Language: Self Taught Artists from Dubuffet to Today,” by Brooke Davis Anderson, director and curator of the Contemporary Center and director of the Henry Study Center at the American Folk Art Museum

Taylor Hall, Room 203

Friday, February 13, 6:30 pm

Opening reception

Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie
(845) 437-5632, http://fllac.vassar.edu

About the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center was founded in 1864 as the Vassar College Art Gallery. The current 36,400-square-foot facility, designed by Cesar Pelli and named in honor of the new building’s primary donor, opened in 1993. The Lehman Loeb Art Center’s collections chart the history of art from antiquity to the present and comprise almost 18,000 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, and glass and ceramic wares. Notable holdings include the Warburg Collection of Old Master prints, an important group of Hudson River School paintings given by Matthew Vassar at the college’s inception, and a wide range of works by major European and American 20th- century painters. Vassar was the first U.S. college founded with a permanent art collection and gallery, and at any given time, the Permanent Collection Galleries of the Art Center feature approximately 350 works from Vassar’s extensive collections.

Admission to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is free. The art center is open to the public Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, 10:00 am–5:00 pm; Thursday, 10:00 am–9:00 pm; and Sunday, 1:00–5:00 pm. Located at the entrance to the historic Vassar College campus, the Art Center can be reached within minutes from other Mid-Hudson cultural attractions, such as Dia:Beacon, the Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt national historic sites and homes, and the Vanderbilt mansion. The Art Center is wheelchair accessible. For more information, the public may call (845) 437-5632 or visit fllac.vassar.edu.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.