Exhibitions

Eric Miller, Clockwork, 2019, watercolor, Best of Show Award Winner 2021

This competitive exhibition features paintings, sculpture, photography, prints, drawings, and textiles produced by artists in Adams County and the larger Mid-Atlantic region. Schmucker Art Gallery partners annually with the Adams County Arts Council to support its mission to cultivate an arts-rich community.

CAPSTONE 2021 (sculpture by Elise Quick ’21)

Graduating Studio Art Majors Ziriu Feng ‘22 and Nicole Mangaroo ’22 will display their capstone work in Schmucker Art Gallery’s Project Space.

Marz Smeltzer ’21, Modern Venus, 2019, copper wire

Outstanding artwork created by Gettysburg College students during the 2021-2022 academic year is selected by Baltimore-based artist James Williams II.

James Williams II, Eve, 2021, velcro, resin, oil on canvas and panel, 16 x 12 in.

James Williams II is a curator and interdisciplinary artist who works across painting, sculpture, and photography. He has exhibited widely in Baltimore, Chicago, and NYC. Williams is the recipient of the MFA Joan Mitchell Foundation award and is a semifinalist for the 2022 Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize. Originally from Upstate New York, Williams now lives in Baltimore. He received his MFA from the Mount Royal School of Art at Maryland Institute College Art (MICA) and currently teaches at MICA.

Williams’s work uses satire and visual riposte to challenge the ambiguity of the Black construct as both an object and abject. What started as an inquiry about the discursive formation of the Black race by his then five-year-old daughter followed his investigation into the subject within American society both past and present. The Black construct is complicated, fluid, and unreliable with anthropomorphic qualities. The “truth” of race and its complexities are intrinsic to our lives, yet as his daughter reminds him daily, it's not as complex as we make it. The use of various photographic, technology, and fiber materials blended within the painting is an attempt to find a childlike understanding of the inaccuracies and indecisiveness of racial classifications of Black Americans and the achromatic color they both share.

Austin Stiegemeier, grave digger atom splitter, oil on linen, 69 x 52 in, 2020

A selection of recent works by Gettysburg College’s studio art faculty: Mark Warwick, Tina Gebhart, Austin Stiegemeier, John Kovaleski, Henry Gepfer, and Amanda Berg.

Xinfu Cheng and Jing Ming, Technological Innovation Makes Red Flowers Blossom, Shanghai, c. 1975, lithograph, 76.6 x 53 cm. Gettysburg College Art Collection.

Under the direction of Prof. Yan Sun, Gettysburg College students examine diverse depictions of workers and scenes of labor to consider issues of identity, equality, and injustice across cultures and historical periods. Works by artists Lewis Hine, James VanDerZee, and Pablo O’Higgins are included in this exhibition, alongside original posters from the Chinese Cultural Revolution and photographs from the Meiji Period in Japan, among others.

   

In 1981, Gettysburg College commissioned African-American artist Martin Puryear to create a work of art to commemorate the sesquicentennial anniversary of the College’s founding, and in 1982, Puryear erected Sentinel. Since then, Puryear has come to be regarded as one of the most important contemporary American sculptors. Sentinel, one of Puryear’s first monumental outdoor sculptures, is an important part of Puryear’s legacy.

For the first time at Gettysburg College, a working mold Puryear constructed in preparation for Sentinel and photographs of the 1982 installation will be on display. The exhibition, curated by Kolbe Summer Research Fellow Merlyn Maldonado '22, will also include prints by Puryear that were recently acquired by the College and loaned from a private collection.

  

Gallery Tour with Photo Collector Ron Perisho: October 22, 2021, 4 pm Reception to follow until 6pm

Co-curated by Schmucker Art Gallery Director Shannon Egan and Norwegian photo historian Marthe Tolnes Fjellestad, Across the West features stunning historical images of waterfalls, rocky mountains, glaciers, and geysers in Norway and the United States. This large traveling exhibition examines how major changes in infrastructure, tourism, mining, and expansion changed the landscapes and affected Indigenous peoples in the nineteenth century in the two countries.

A complementary exhibition will be on display concurrently at Eckert Art Gallery, Millersville University, and the exhibition then will travel to museums in Utah, Seattle, and Norway.

Turkish Treasure, 2020, by Sandra Desrosiers. (Medium: Oil).

This competitive exhibition, juried by Dr. William Crow, Director of Lehigh University Art Galleries, features paintings, sculpture, photography, prints, drawings, and textiles produced by artists in Adams County and the larger Mid-Atlantic region. Schmucker Art Gallery partners annually with the Adams County Arts Council to support its mission to cultivate an arts-rich community. View the exhibition online.

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Senior studio art majors present their independent capstone work in a variety of media under the direction of Professor Austin Stiegemeier.