Join museum staff for these fun and informative new featured objects spotlight tours happening on three Wednesdays from Noon-12:20 P.M. at the Art Museum. RCCAM staff share insights into one or more artworks on display in the galleries. Attendees are welcome to ask questions and engage in dialog. Gallery seating is available. All are welcome to bring lunch to eat in our auditorium afterwards, and continue the conversation through 1 P.M.
WED SEP 18, 12:00-12.20 PM
Spotlight Tours: A Tang Dynasty Horse Sculpture with Jack Green, Jeffrey Horrell ‘75 and Rodney Rose Director and Chief Curator.
WED OCT 16, 12:00-12.20 PM
Spotlight Tours: Freedom Summer ‘64 Photography – Danny Lyon, with Jason Shaiman.
WED NOV 20, 12:00-12.20 PMSpotlight Tours: “Paintings by Frank Duveneck” – title tbd; with Jenn Laqualia, Collections Manager and Registrar.
Stop in, enjoy a brief yet in-depth spotlight presentation and walk about featuring an object (or a few) on view in the current exhibitions.
WED SEP 18, 12:00-12.20 PM
Spotlight Tours: A Tang Dynasty Horse Sculpture with Jack Green, Jeffrey Horrell ‘75 and Rodney Rose Director and Chief Curator.
McKie Gallery, Collections Highlights: Recent Acquisitions
Focal work: Tang Dynasty Horse, 618-907 CE. Ceramic with pigment, 11 3/4 x 12 1/2 x 4 inches. Gift of Barbara Fahs Charles, in memory of her great aunt, Abbie Lyon Sharman, and her grandmother, Sophia Lyon Fahs. 2021.12.
Chinese Tang horses were a powerful symbol of status, and usually found in the tombs of the rich and powerful, as well as the Imperial family. The terracotta horse tradition started in the Qin dynasty (221-206 BCE), when a new rule abolished the necessity of burying favorite steeds (or wives) with the deceased. While its original archaeological context is unknown, the gift of this Tang Horse comes with a history of ownership extending back to the 1920s.
WED OCT 16, 12:00-12.20 PM
Spotlight Tours: Freedom Summer ‘64 Photography – Danny Lyon, with Jason Shaiman.
Farmer Gallery, Through Their Lens: Photographing Freedom Summer
Focal Work: Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Martha Prescod, Mike Miller and Bob Moses doing voter registration work, Mississippi, 1964 (printed 2024). Art Museum purchase through the John A. Weigel and Milton White Fund and the Edward and Isabel Kezur Art Museum Fund. 2024.32
Ted Polumbaum and Danny Lyon were among a number of photographers who took pictures of volunteers speaking about voter registration with disenfranchised Blacks. Unlike most photographs taken outside on front porches, as seen in the bottom photograph by Lyon, Polumbaum’s photograph inside a home provided a rare glimpse into the challenging living conditions of many poor residents. Many Black residents opened their homes to temporarily house Freedom Summer volunteers, including some photographers, at great risk.
WED NOV 20, 12:00-12.20 PM
Spotlight Tours: “Paintings by Frank Duveneck” – with Jenn Laqualia, Collections Manager and Registrar.
McKie Gallery, Collections Highlights: Recent Acquisitions
Frank Duveneck, American, 1848-1919, Italian Girl, ca. 1885
Oil on canvas, 24 1/8 x 20 inches. Gift of Richard and Carole Cocks, 2022.17.
Covington, Kentucky, native Frank Duveneck made many long visits to Germany and Italy. While at the Royal Academy of Munich, he was one of the young American painters to break from the Hudson River School (NY) approach to blended brushstrokes in favor of a looser application of paint. Duveneck likely painted this portrait of an unknown woman around 1885 during his Italian travels, which features a lighter palette than his Munich work and embodies a similar slashing style of brushwork to Frans Hals, a 16th century Dutch Golden Age painter. Following the death of his wife in March 1888, Duveneck returned to America to teach painting at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.
Frank Duveneck, American, 1848-1919, Sketch for Reading of Tasso, ca. 1884, Oil on canvas, 17 x 29 inches. Bequest of Frank Jordan, Jr. 2022.39