Arts & Culture

Oglethorpe’s permanent collection, Ashcan School artists headline spring exhibitions

Oglethorpe University Museum of Art has opened two new exhibitions this semester: The Ashcan School and Their Circle and OUMA Collects: Selections from Oglethorpe University Museum of Art.

“This spring we have a wide range of art on view, from a 14th century Japanese Buddha to a 1960’s watercolor by celebrated folk artist Mattie Lou O’Kelley, a Georgia native,” said museum director Elizabeth Peterson. “Between the two exhibitions, there is a lot of different art media to enjoy including etchings, oils, watercolors, bronzes, lithographs, and silkscreens.”

OUMA Collects: Selections from Oglethorpe University Museum of Art highlights selected works from the permanent collection that align with current course offerings at Oglethorpe—some may be somewhat surprising—including Core Art and Culture, Developmental Biology, French Lyric and Literary Prose, Feminist Media Studies, Ecology, and more.

Going forward, OUMA will devote its Skylight Gallery to the growing permanent collection, which currently numbers more than 700 works, mostly donated. Each semester, OUMA will reinstall to keep the objects on view aligned with course offerings. Faculty are encouraged to utilize the museum space and its collections as a resource to support the academic experience. This inaugural exhibition closes June 24.

John French Sloan (1871 – 1951), Return from Toil, 1915, etching, Private Collection

John French Sloan (1871 – 1951), Return from Toil, 1915, etching, Private Collection

On view through March 4, The Ashcan School and Their Circle features artists who worked in the early years of the 20th century and were named for the gritty scenes of everyday life in New York City and the metropolitan area they depicted. These images of daily toil were the product of a loosely affiliated group of artists including John Sloan, George Luks, Robert Henri, Ernest Lawson, Reginald Marsh, George Bellows and others, all of whom were interested in modern life, often in the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

Most of the works of art on view are on loan from three private collections within the Atlanta metro area, plus some on loan from the High Museum of Art (Atlanta) and The Museum of Modern Art (NYC).

Eugène Boudin (1824-1898), Pâturage aux moutons, côte normande, ca. 1882-1886, pastel on paper, Gift of Drs. Yolanta and Isaac Melamed, Collection of Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, Photo by Travis S. Taylor

Eugène Boudin (1824-1898), Pâturage aux moutons, côte normande, ca. 1882-1886, pastel on paper, Gift of Drs. Yolanta and Isaac Melamed, Collection of Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, Photo by Travis S. Taylor

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