During the fall semester, Schmucker Art Gallery at Gettysburg College will present two exhibitions, including a student-curated exhibition that is part of the College’s commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War.

More information on the exhibitions is below, and for additional information, contact Schmucker Art Gallery Director Shannon Egan at 717-337-6125, segan@gettysburg.edu, or visit www.gettysburg.edu/gallery.

A Tale of Two Cities: Eugene Atget’s Paris and Berenice Abbott’s New York
Main Gallery
August 29 – October 29

Symposium: September 11, 4-6 p.m.

Presentations by Prof. Terri Weissman, University of Urbana-Champaign, Prof. Mary McLeod, Columbia University, and Prof. Victoria Rosner, Columbia University.

Reception: September 11, 6-7 p.m.

Schmucker Art Gallery presents an exhibition of photographs by art-historically renowned photographers Eugene Atget and Berenice Abbott. French photographer Atget captured pre-World War I Paris before many of the city’s architectural splendors were lost to modernization and war. American-born photographer Abbott used her lens to preserve the physical changes of New York during the early 1930s.

The exhibition examines the work of two artists who were inextricably linked to each other and to the development of modern photography. Atget (The Eclipse, Paris, 1912 pictured at left) was dismayed by the amount of architectural history being destroyed during the modernization of Paris and began photographing the city’s shop fronts, streets, and neighborhoods in 1898. In 1925, Abbott met Atget when she was working as a darkroom assistant to artist Man Ray. Abbott was deeply and permanently affected by Atget’s images; she wrote, “There was a sudden flash of recognition—the shock of realism unadorned.” Abbott spent eight years in Paris, and on a visit to New York in 1929 was consumed by the desire to capture the physical change of the city. Her efforts produced a catalog of images that, like Atget’s earlier photographs of Paris, records the essential character of the city.

The exhibition of forty-one photographs by Atget and Abbott, on loan from the Syracuse University Art Galleries, is held in conjunction with an interdisciplinary symposium on the history and theory of photography, modernism, architecture and literature by noted scholars Prof. Terri Weissman, University of Urbana-Champaign, Prof. Mary McLeod, Columbia University, and Prof. Victoria Rosner, Columbia University.

This exhibition is organized by Syracuse University Art Galleries and supported in part by EPACC, Gettysburg College.

Visualizing War
Project Space
August 29 – September 29

Reception: September 11, 6-7 p.m.

Gallery Talk by Andrew Egbert: September 20, noon (light lunch provided)

Curated by Civil War Institute Fellows Natalie Sherif, Alexandra Ward and Andrew Egbert, the exhibition examines perceptions of the American Civil War in the North and the evolution of its political, social, and militaristic visual representations through a wide range of objects including maps, lithographs, stereo views, and sheet music from Gettysburg College’s Special Collections at Musselman Library.

For additional information on Visualizing War, visit www.gettysburg.edu/civilwar2013 or call 717-337-6012.

Sponsored by the Schmucker Art Gallery and supported in part by Gettysburg College’s Civil War Institute and the Sesquicentennial Planning Committee for the Commemoration of the American Civil War.

About Schmucker Art Gallery

The 1,600-square-foot Schmucker Art Gallery is a lively art space that displays ten to eleven different exhibitions each year. Included in the gallery calendar are shows by local, national, and international contemporary artists, a faculty exhibition, a student exhibition, the annual senior art-major show, and exhibits of works selected from public and private collections.

The Schmucker Art Gallery is located on the main floor of Gettysburg College’s Schmucker Hall (located at the intersection of N. Washington and Water streets) and is fully accessible. Free parking is available in one of the Visitor parking lots on campus, or free two-hour parking can be found on the streets adjacent to Schmucker Hall. The main entrance is through the quadrangle side of the building.

All events are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Founded in 1832, Gettysburg College is a highly selective four-year residential college of liberal arts and sciences with a strong academic tradition. Alumni include Rhodes Scholars, a Nobel laureate, and other distinguished scholars. The college enrolls 2,600 undergraduate students and is located on a 200-acre campus adjacent to the Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania.

Contact: Nikki Rhoads, senior assistant director of communications, 717.337.6803