Special Collections houses Colby’s rare books and manuscript collections as well as the college archives. Drawing on these rich collections, the exhibit highlights Hartley’s own literary work as a lesser-known aspect of his creative career, as well as letters, manuscripts, and published works by some of the Maine writers Hartley knew and read.
When I was able to put Homer’s work in context, not only out of the museum but off the pedestal of “genius” that often surrounds great artists, I found myself thinking about his paintings differently. I was able to see improvisation, movement, and creativity that I hadn’t noticed before.
Over the course of the four-day trip, the students are set up with professionals working in all corners of the art world, from museums and galleries to studios and auction houses to communications and law firms and other organizations.
This October, students from Associate Professor Winifred Tate’s anthropology class “Space, Place, and Belonging” visited the Colby College Museum of Art. They each selected one photograph from Leah Modigliani’s installation, How Long Can We Tolerate This?, and analyzed it as a representation of place.
Hartley’s first glass paintings from 1917 are primitive compared to his canvas paintings from prior years. A complicated procedure, reverse painting on glass requires that details and highlights be painted first, then the foreground carefully laid on top.
