Recent Acquisitions:
20th-Century Prints, Drawings, and Paintings

June 20 - September 14, 2003
Wolcott Gallery

The Fleming Museum's collection has grown continuously since it was first established in the 1820s. Art objects, anthropological artifacts, costumes, and decorative arts come into the Museum's collection in a variety of ways. Frequently, works are offered as gifts from alumni, members of the community, and others with connections to Vermont. Purchases are also made by the Museum, sometimes with gift funds given for that purpose. Some of these objects are specifically sought out by the Museum staff; others are offered for sale to the Museum by art dealers or collectors. The Fleming, like most museums, has collecting priorities that change over time.

This exhibition highlights 20th-century prints, drawings, and paintings in collecting categories that are a high priority for the Fleming: Vermont artists, landscape subjects, work by artists of color, and work by women artists. This exhibition presents an exciting array of new acquisitions in all of these categories. The subject of landscape is an existing area of strength for the Museum on which we want to build, in part because of Vermont's own natural beauty, and in part because of the University's commitment to the environment. Work by artists of color and by women artists is an area in which the Fleming has been collecting for the past ten years toward the goal ofa more balanced representation within the collection. Two significant new acquisitions by artists of color include Glenn Ligon's prints based on African-American writers' texts, and Civil Rights photographer Ernest Withers's celebrated photograph of the Birmingham Sanitation Workers' Strike.