Woodhouse Family Gallery
On view November 12, 2022 – May 24, 2026
In his “A Talk to Teachers” from 1963, James Baldwin opined that “American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.” This exhibition, which draws its title from Baldwin’s description, showcases works from the Weisman’s collection by American artists that demonstrate, confound, and probe these aspects of the American experience. Featuring artistic expressions by Indigenous creators, the descendants of the earliest European colonizers, as well as enslaved Africans, and the work of artists who came to the United States through immigration, this set of objects from the Weisman collection presents a rich and complex panorama of American art.
From its origins in 1934 as the University Gallery, Weisman Art Museum has been committed to collecting the work of American artists. Critically considering the history and nature of that commitment, this new Woodhouse Family Gallery installation highlights the variety and relevance of the museum’s holdings of United States art with a focus on the many contested terrains at play in American art, history, and experience.
Image credits: (Top) Jacob Lawrence, Dancing Doll, 1947. Egg tempera on hardboard, 20 1/4 x 20 1/8 in. 1978.21.288 (Bottom, clockwise from top left) Harry Bertoia, The Pod, 1956. Steel, bronze, and nickel silver. 25 1/2 x 25 1/2 x 8 in. 1959.11; Jim Denomie, Live Music Tonite, 1996. Oil on canvas, 34 7/8 x 49 in. 2000.36; Phillip Evergood, Wheels of Victory, 1944. Oil on panel, 37 3/4 x 42 1/2 in. 1978.21.830; Megan Rye, Red Helicopter, 2011. Oil on canvas, 35 1/2 x 40 x 2 in. 2012.5
A woman in pin curls and a gauzy blouse sits before a landscape, gazing into the distance. Her expression is pensive. The black, cloud-like forms edging the scene suggest a gathering storm or impending misfortune. The scrawny tree on the right is stripped of its foliage, and it stands in an expanse of fields tinged with a dusty brown. The artist of this painting, Stuyvesant Van Veen (1910-1988), gave it the title Hannah (Mood). He left no record of…
Right now at the Weisman Art Museum there is a lot of buzz about brains. Following the opening of The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal last week, there is a lot of excitement about neuroscience, microscopes, and the relationship between art and science. However, as developed as our brain imaging technologies may be, we still have a lot of room for development in our conversations around mental health on campus. This year in the WAM Collective, we have been focusing…
Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, announces the touring exhibition and catalogue BJO Nordfeldt: American Internationalist The project includes fresh new archival research and major loans. The Weisman Art Museum holds the largest collection of works by this innovative, early-Twentieth-Century, Swedish immigrant artist. For BJO Nordfeldt: American Internationalist the Weisman brought together works from fifteen museum and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the University of New Mexico Art Museum, among…