Something for Everyone!

The public is invited to the Academy Art Museum for an Instructor’s Studio Sale on Saturday June 10, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The instructors are bringing their studio works to you. Enjoy perusing their bins and racks of paintings, pastels, fine art prints, drawings, pottery, photographs and more. Plus art books, supplies and frames. Who knows what hidden gems you might find? All in a festive outdoor market atmosphere. Rain location is in the AAM performing arts room.

Participating instructors include Barrie Barnett, Bernie Dellario, Diane DuBois Mullaly, Mary Pritchard, Sheryl Southwick, Meg Walsh and Stewart White.

While you’re there, it’s a great time to visit the current exhibits inside the museum.

The Academy Art Museum is located in Easton, Maryland at 106 South Street, corner of S. Harrison Street. Convenient on and off-street parking.

The Academy Art Museum (AAM) received a generous grant from Art Bridges Foundation to offer a series of free public programs related to tintype photographs of Native American people by contemporaryDiné artist Will Wilson that are on view in AAM’s latest exhibition In Praise of Shadows.

The slate includes three film programs—a selection of Sky Hopinka’s short films, followed by a conversation with the artist; short films by Indigenous American directors and producers; and a lecture by scholar Rebecca Weaver-Hightower that addresses depictions of Native American people in film throughout history. The programs complement and expand on themes that Wilson explores in his work, offering audiences a greater understanding of the racist and genocidal mythologizing at work in non-Native art and film about Native American people, and the settler colonial gaze that Wilson and many Indigenous artists and filmmakers are resisting.

All programs are generously supported by Art Bridges arts patron Alice Walton’s visionary program that subsidizes loans of major artworks and related programming in rural museums. Details about each event follow.

An Evening with Sky Hopinka
Tuesday, June 6, 6 pm
Free
Register Here: https://academyartmuseum.org/an-evening-with-sky-hopinka/

View a selection of short films by renowned experimental filmmaker Sky Hopinka, followed by a post-screening discussion with the artist and Dr. Ryan Conrath, Salisbury University professor and film programmer. Conceived in connection to Diné artist Will Wilson’s portraits of Native American people on view in the exhibition In Praise of Shadows, the program examines representations of Indigenous people and worldviews in art and film.

Sky Hopinkais a 2022 MacArthur Fellow. He received a BA from Portland State University and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Film and Electronic Arts Program at Bard College. His work has been shown at many film festivals and exhibited at the Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester, Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Hopinka is a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and a descendent of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians.

Rebecca Weaver-Hightower: The Settler Colonial Gaze
Thursday, June 8, 6 pm
Free
Register here: https://academyartmuseum.org/rebecca-weaver-hightower-the-settler-colonial-gaze/

Dr. Rebecca Weaver-Hightower offers a thought-provoking talk on the construction of settler colonial ideology and its visual manifestations in cinema, photography, and museum exhibition practice. Offered in connection to Diné artist Will Wilson’s portraits of Native American people on view in the exhibition In Praise of Shadows, the lecture examines representations of Indigenous people and worldviews in art and film over time.

Weaver-Hightower is a professor in the Department of English at Virginia Tech. She recently co-authored Cinematic Settlers: The Settler Colonial World in Film, and she authored both Frontier Fictions: Settler Sagas and Postcolonial Guilt and Empire Islands: Castaways, Cannibals and Fantasies. She is also a co-editor of Archiving Settler Colonialism: Culture, Space and Race and Postcolonial Film: History, Empire, Resistance.

Shorts Program: “Critical Indigenous Cinema”
Thursday, June 15, 6 pm
Free
Register here: https://academyartmuseum.org/critcal-indigenous-cinema/

Join us for a program of short experimental films by contemporary Indigenous producers who use cinema to provide counter-images to settler narratives in visually and conceptually daring ways. Curated by Dr. Ryan Conrath, Salisbury University professor and film programmer, and conceived in connection to Diné artist Will Wilson’s portraits of Native American people on view in the exhibition In Praise of Shadows, the program examines representations of Indigenous people and worldviews in art and film. Following the screening, Conrath and B.L. Strang-Moya, filmmaker and Ocean City Film Festival organizer, will discuss the films and their contributions to contemporary film culture as well as to a rethinking of Native American people’s involvement in cinema more broadly.

About the Academy Art Museum

As the premier art museum on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Academy Art Museum presents high-quality exhibitions and a full range of art classes for visitors of all ages. Past exhibitions have featured artists such as James Turrell, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Pat Steir and Richard Diebenkorn. The permanent collection focuses on works on paper by American and European artists from four centuries including recent acquisitions by Graciela Iturbide and Zanele Muholi. Arts educational programs range from life drawing lessons to digital art instruction, and include lunchtime and cocktail hour concerts, lectures and special art events, as well as a free block-party style Juneteenth Celebration and Fall Craft Show celebrating 26 years. AAM also provides arts education to school children from the region and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. To continue the institutional movement of offering free public programming and to give barrier-free access to art, AAM eliminated admission fees in 2023.

Location: 106 South Street, Easton, Maryland
Hours: Tuesday-Wednesday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, Thursday-Friday 10:00 am to 7:00 pm, and Saturday-Sunday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Closed Mondays and Federal holidays.
Admission: Free

The Academy Art Museum is pleased to announce the acquisition of a new sculpture for its permanent collection. Density of Air, by Alyson Shotz will be on view beginning May 16, 2023. Also on Tuesday, May 16 at 5:30 pm, the artist will discuss this sculpture and her other work in an Artist Talk at the Museum.

Density of Air explores the unique make-up and movement of air by reimagining it in the form of thousands of small stainless-steel disks. Curator Mehves Lelic remarks: “The mixture of gases that make up air and their expansion and compression are often invisible to the human eye, which leaves much to our imagination. Shotz’s disks become poetic molecules in this imaginary world as they reinterpret the unique way gases behave by clustering, distorting, and curving delicately, and thus forming an immense tapestry that links the physical and the sublime. Standing before it is a wondrous, immersive experience for the viewer.”

The artist has long been influenced by science, and many of her works mold unlikely forms out of glass, metal, and other inorganic materials. Speaking of the influence of the natural world on her work, Shotz states, “There are things that I see happen when I’m working with a material that tells me something about gravity, space, force. I’m interested in showing that idea through the artwork.”

The sculpture guides visitors between the two floors of the Museum and acts as an unmissable point of interest between the gallery spaces on the first floor and the studio classrooms above. The work’s large scale and various vantage points from which it can be viewed enable a captivating experience for the viewer.

Shotz is a critically acclaimed artist whose works can be found in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, National Gallery of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, The High Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Phillips Collection, The DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Storm King Art Center, and now, the Academy Art Museum. She was a MacDowell Fellow in 2021, an Arts Institute Research Fellow at Stanford University in 2014- 2015, a Sterling Visiting Scholar, Stanford University, 2012, she received a Pollock Krasner Award in 1999 and 2010, the Saint Gaudens Memorial Fellowship in 2007, and was the 2005-2006 Happy and Bob Doran Artist in Residence at Yale University Art Gallery. In 2004 she received a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts.

The acquisition of Density of Air was made possible through a bequest by Helaine White, and the generous support of Pam and Jim Harris, Elizabeth Hormel, Bette S. Kenzie, Christine and Don Martin, Catherine McCoy, R. Scott and Courtney Clark Pastrick, MaryLou and Joseph Peters, Mary Ann Schindler In Memory of Martin Hughes, Ann and Tom Scully, Seip Family Foundation, and Nancy L. Trippe.

As the premier art museum on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Academy Art Museum presents high-quality exhibitions and a full range of art classes for visitors of all ages. Past exhibitions have featured artists such as James Turrell, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Pat Steir and Richard Diebenkorn. The permanent collection focuses on works on paper by American and European artists from four centuries including recent acquisitions by Graciela Iturbide and Zanele Muholi. Arts educational programs range from life drawing lessons to digital art instruction, and include lunchtime and cocktail hour concerts, lectures and special art events, as well as a Fall Craft Show celebrating 26 years. AAM also provides arts education to school children from the region and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. To continue the institutional movement of offering free public programming and to give barrier-free access to art, AAM eliminated admission fees in 2023.

Location: 106 South Street, Easton, Maryland
Hours: Tuesday-Wednesday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, Thursday-Friday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and Saturday-Sunday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Closed Mondays and Federal holidays.
Admission: Free

In Praise of Shadows: Modern and Contemporary Dialogues with Jun’ichiro Tanizaki
April 20 – July 16, 2023

LaToya Hobbs: Woodcuts
April 22 – July 23, 2023

Open House: Saturday, April 22

The Academy Art Museum is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibitions In Praise of Shadows: Modern and Contemporary Dialogues with Jun’ichiro Tanizaki and LaToya Hobbs: Woodcuts. There will be an open house for both exhibitions on Saturday, April 22, 2023. During the open house at 2 pm, LaToya Hobbs will give a presentation of her work.

In conjunction with the exhibition In Praise of Shadows, a short film program, Poetry of Shadows will be offered for free on Friday, April 28 at 6 pm.

In Praise of Shadows: Modern and Contemporary Dialogues with Jun’ichiro Tanizaki

In Praise of Shadows  presents a selection of works on paper by acclaimed 20th century and contemporary artists in dialogue with the Japanese author Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, who wrote a seminal essay of the same title in 1933. Tanizaki’s subtle but powerful observations on how darkness can exude beauty and sumptuousness conjure a visual world that subverts the historical archetyping of light as ethereal, good and angelic, and dark as brooding and somewhat devilish. Bringing together works by Belkis Ayon, Kate Breakey, Kottie Gaydos, Louise Nevelson, Kiuko Saito, Hito Steyerl, Dox Thrash, and others, the exhibition provides an in-depth look at the various uses of darkness in art from the early 20th century until the present day.

“In Praise of Shadows by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, is one of those essays that can truly transform one’s worldview, understanding of history, and appreciation of beauty. It has been a wonderful journey to seek the work of artists whose works subvert mainstream interpretations of darkness, and convey much-needed nuance in the shadows, paralleling Tanizaki’s observations on how the lack of light can indeed bring out staggering visions. Whether it is the literal mechanics of light and shadow that produce Will Wilson’s portraits, or Kottie Gaydos’ ceramic sculptural installation that will develop over the course of the exhibition, the artists in the exhibition all interpret darkness in innovative ways,” notes Curator Mehves Lelic.

Seventeen tintype photographs by contemporary Diné artist Will Wilson are on loan to the Museum from Art Bridges, arts patron Alice Walton’s visionary program that subsidizes loans of major artworks to rural museums. The works are part of Wilson’s Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange series, in which he partners with Native people to make their portrait. By using a historic nineteenth century photographic process, collaborating with his subjects on how they are depicted, and then gifting them the original work, Wilson offers his sitters agency, in turn, subverting damaging romanticized and stereotypical depictions of Indigenous people.

Wilson received his MFA from the University of New Mexico. He has been honored with the Eiteljorg Native American Fine Art Fellowship, Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Sculpture, Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant for Photography and he was the Doran Artist in Residence at the Yale University Art Gallery. Wilson has held visiting professorships at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Oberlin College, and the University of Arizona. His work is exhibited and collected internationally, and he is Head of Photography at Santa Fe Community College.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Art Bridges to expose local audiences to the thought-provoking ideas behind Will Wilson’s portraits of Native people and the issues of representation he subverts through his collaborative approach. Our work at the Academy Art Museum, like Art Bridges, is driven by the conviction that everyone should have access to the highest quality cultural experiences. With the ongoing support of Art Bridges, we can deliver on that vision,” states Director Sarah Jesse.

To provide barrier-free access to art, the Museum recently eliminated its admission fee. These exhibitions and all related programming are offered to the public at no charge.

Short Film Program: Poetry of Shadows
Friday, April 28, 6 pm
Free

Inspired by the exhibition In Praise of Shadows, AAM presents a program of short experimental films showcasing cinema’s poetry of shadows on Friday, April 28 at 6 pm. Films will be projected in their original format, including 16mm film, and introduced by Ryan Conrath, programmer and Associate Professor of Film at Salisbury University, in conversation with AAM Curator Mehves Lelic. Films include: Black Girl as a Landscape (Sondra Perry, 2010, 10 min.); Immer Zu (Janie Geiser, 1997, 8.5 min.); Image (Shadow) (Nobuhiro Aihara, 1987, 8.5 min.); Arnulf Rainer (Peter Kubelka, 1960, 7 min.); and Black Hole Space Debt (Stephen Wardell, 2022, 14 min.)

LaToya Hobbs: Woodcuts
Artist Talk: Saturday, April 22, 2 pm

Arkansas-born, Baltimore-based painter and printmaker LaToya Hobbs uses figuration to depict the Black female body and challenge the stereotypical perceptions of it through a nuanced, layered look. Themes of family, beauty, adornment, cultural identity, and sisterhood take center stage in the work, as Hobbs’ thoughtful compositions on a singular printmaking surface create deep, multi-faceted worlds.

Hobbs holds a BA in Painting from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and an MFA in Printmaking from Purdue University. Her exhibition record includes numerous national and international venues, including the National Art Gallery of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia; the SCAD Museum of Art; the Albright Knox Museum; and the Sophia Wanamaker Gallery in San Jose, Costa Rica, among others. Her work is housed in private and public collections such as the Harvard Art Museum, the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art, the National Art Gallery of Namibia, the Getty Research Institute, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Hobbs’s accomplishments include the 2020 Janet and Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize, a nomination for the 2022 Queen Sonja Print Award, and a 2022 IFPDA Artist Grant. Hobbs is also a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a founding member of Black Women of Print (BWoP).

Curator Mehves Lelic comments, “LaToya Hobbs’ work is an incredibly moving celebration of Black femininity. She is a virtuosic printmaker who can tell layered stories of beauty, joy, and shared history through her portraits, which serve as a living legacy. Her subjects come alive in her large-scale portraits through layers of patterns, textures, and aura. Woodcut is the oldest form of printmaking, and Hobbs’ visual language presents an exciting, contemporary and masterful revitalization. We are very much looking forward to sharing her work with our audience.”

As the premier art museum on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Academy Art Museum presents high-quality exhibitions and a full range of art classes for visitors of all ages. Past exhibitions have featured artists such as James Turrell, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Pat Steir and Richard Diebenkorn. The permanent collection focuses on works on paper by American and European artists from four centuries including recent acquisitions by Graciela Iturbide and Zanele Muholi. Arts educational programs range from life drawing lessons to digital art instruction, and include lunchtime and cocktail hour concerts, lectures and special art events, as well as a Fall Craft Show celebrating 26 years. AAM also provides arts education to school children from the region and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. To continue the institutional movement of offering free public programming and to give barrier-free access to art, AAM eliminated admission fees in 2023.

The Academy Art Museum is pleased to announce its current exhibition, Fractured Modernities: Contemporary Art from Turkey. This exhibition includes works by Didem Erbas, Merve Unsal, Erdem Varol, and Zeynep Kayan.

Curator Mehves Lelic states, “The exhibition aims to take a closer look at the thoughtful and nuanced works that are being made by young contemporary artists from Turkey today. These artists are all responding to the present climate in Turkey through their respective and unique visual languages. It has been a privilege to include their work in this exhibition, which cumulatively presents a take on what modernity might look like in a country with a complex cultural and sociopolitical history.”

This exhibition explores the present moment in Turkey’s cultural history through the work of artists Didem Erbas, Merve Unsal, Erdem Varol, and Zeynep Kayan. The unique crossroads between empire and republic, heritage and modernity, and containment and globalization have forged complex webs in the fabric of the Turkish society that are present in each artist’s work, as the nation grapples with its identity and the social and cultural forces that make it so pluralistic. A dominant thread that brings the artists’ work together is a connection to this multicultural past, its manifestations in the present, and a critique of Turkey’s simplistic reputation as a bridge between the East and the West.

The influence of persistent political and economic upheaval is present in the way each artist explores the relationship between the built and natural landscapes and the people who live in them. From Erdem Varol’s grainy, high-contrast photographs taken from anywhere between a plane in high altitude to under a parked car, to Didem Erbas’ rich, fluid oil paintings documenting the exploitation of the country’s natural resources, the works in the exhibition marry movement and color with the heaviness of the nation’s past, especially in the wake of a catastrophic earthquake that shook Turkey and Syria.

About the Academy Art Museum

As the premier art museum on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Academy Art Museum presents high-quality exhibitions and a full range of art classes for visitors of all ages. Past exhibitions have featured artists such as James Turrell, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Pat Steir and Richard Diebenkorn. The permanent collection focuses on works on paper by American and European artists from four centuries including recent acquisitions by Graciela Iturbide and Zanele Muholi. Arts educational programs range from life drawing lessons to digital art instruction, and include lunchtime and cocktail hour concerts, lectures and special art events, as well as a Fall Craft Show celebrating 25 years. AAM also provides arts education to school children from the region and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. To continue the institutional movement of offering free public programming and to give barrier-free access to art, AAM eliminated admission fees in 2023.

Location: 106 South Street, Easton, Maryland
Hours: Tuesday-Wednesday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, Thursday-Friday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and Saturday-Sunday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Closed Mondays and Federal holidays.
Admission: Free

Currently on view at the Academy Art Museum: Mary Cassatt: Labor and Leisure, Labor and Leisure in the Permanent Collection, Earth Abides: Selections from the Permanent Collection, and Hoesy Corona: Terrestrial Caravan.

Betty Huang, President of the Working Artists Forum, was very pleased, on behalf of WAF, to present a check to Sarah Jesse, Director at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, in the amount of $1,000.

Working Artist Forum is an active art organization with a membership of over 100 professional artists that has enjoyed a relationship with the Academy Art Museum for many years and meets monthly there.

WAF has requested a specific distribution of the donation in order to encourage and support the arts in the community.  $200 is earmarked as a WAF award for an entry in the Museum’s Annual Members Exhibition entitled “Best of Eastern Shore Scene,” and $300 to support artists-in-need that wish to take classes at the Academy. Lastly, $500 is to be used to support children-in-need to attend the Academy’s summer camp program.

An important part of the mission of WAF is to sponsor numerous art exhibit opportunities for its members, both locally and beyond, throughout the year, including the well-known and well-attended Local Color exhibit held at Christ Church in downtown Easton during the week of Plein Air Easton in July.

Through the support and purchase of paintings by artists who have been juried into the Local Color art show, WAF has been actively promoting and encouraging the arts with its contributions of art supply DickBlick.com gift cards to 33 school art departments of local schools each year.

For more information on WAF, visit WorkingArtistsForum.com

Think of a mix between Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Elton John and you’ve got Josh Christina.

If you’re a fan of piano driven rock n’ roll, Josh Christina will restore your confidence in the ability of young musicians to carry on the great tradition of rock’s pioneers. Josh Christina writes his own music, refurbishes the classics, and plays a mean piano.  Also, if you get a chance to see Josh and his band live, he creates some great excitement with his audience. His show appeals to all generations as it’s a mix of everything from Jerry Lee Lewis to Elton John with some originals woven in. Josh Christina is a rock n roll revivalist whose music provides a bridge across generational lines by going backward to move into the future.

In 2015, Josh’s talents caught the attention of Nashville-based producer Kent Wells (Dolly Parton), who immediately got to work with Christina on his sophomore effort. The piano aficionado can be heard on his two Nashville recorded albums, “Good Old Love” and “I’m 21″. Both produced by Kent Wells. His single, “Kayla Ann”, charted on the Music Row chart in Nashville and #1 on a couple of Independent charts.

The infectious sound of Josh Christina hit the international airwaves when he performed live on Ireland’s Late, Late Show in September of 2016. Not only did it place Josh Christina Music upon the world stage, but also introduced this amazing style and sound to a new generation of music fans, followers and believers.

His album, “Instincts” was recorded at the historic Sam Phillips Recording Studio in Memphis. The album was co produced by two time Grammy award winner Jon Carroll (Starland Vocal band).His most recent single, “Weekend Night in America” landed on the college charts.

“In 20th century 1955, it took several young men to create and define Rock ‘n’ Roll. 65 years later and it only takes one young man who embodies all the pioneers to introduce it to the 21st century. That man is Josh Christina.”

— Daryl Davis (Pianist/Band Leader for Chuck Berry)

“Josh plays piano like Jerry Lee Lewis and Elton John, sings like Elvis Presley and looks like Buddy Holly”
— Jon Carroll – Two Time Grammy Award Winner

Josh Christina Band will perform at the Academy Art Museum on Saturday, January 21, 2023 at 7pm. This concert is presented in partnership with WHCP Cambridge Community Radio. Tickets are limited. Before the performance, join AAM for a reception and learn more about WHCP’s exciting public radio growth plans into Talbot County and more!

Purchase Tickets Here: https://academyartmuseum.org/josh-christina/

The Academy Art Museum is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition, Mary Cassatt: Labor and Leisure. Concurrent with this exhibition, the Museum will also feature Labor and Leisure in the Permanent Collection, which includes complementary works from AAM’s permanent collection. An opening reception is scheduled for Friday, January 20 from 5:30–7:00 pm.

In conjunction with this exhibition, Robyn Asleson, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the National Portrait Gallery, will speak about Mary Cassatt’s life and works on Friday, March 31 at 6:00 pm. This program is free to the public.

“This exhibition features several of Cassatt’s best-known etchings, such as In the Omnibus and The Banjo Lesson, among other works, as well as an oil sketch and a state of a print that gives insight into the artist’s process. The title, Labor and Leisure, highlights the intertwined nature of domestic work and recreation for women of the time. Cassatt’s observations of her subjects present a full, dignified and profound picture of life in this sphere. The exhibition also gives viewers an opportunity to consider Cassatt’s diverse and changing influences throughout her career, from Impressionism to Japanese woodblock printing,” states Curator Mehves Lelic.

Mary Cassatt: Labor and Leisure 

Mary Cassatt (American, 1844-1926) is undoubtedly one of the greatest American artists in history. She has contributed subtle yet powerful and lucid observations of women’s daily lives, with a particular focus on the tender moments between mothers and their children, presenting them as artistic subjects worthy of full, nuanced consideration. Mary Cassatt: Labor and Leisure includes Cassatt’s permeating depictions of domestic labor and recreation and underlines the complex relationship between women and society in light of the worlds of, and expectations from, the women of the time.

Presenting important etchings, aquatints and oils on loan from the New York Public Library, Adelson Gallery New York, and the High Museum of Art, as well as works from the Museum’s Permanent Collection, this exhibition offers a look into Cassatt’s evolving style and influences in artmaking, from Japanese printmaking to the Impressionists, and invites viewers to consider the relationship between the women she depicts and the multi-layered societal forces at play.

Labor and Leisure in the Permanent Collection 

Accompanying Mary Cassatt: Labor and Leisure, this exhibition includes works from the Museum’s Permanent Collection that present diverse and sometimes intertwined depictions of work and play. A counterpoint to Cassatt’s delicate interpretations of labor at home and in carefully composed social settings, Labor and Leisure in the Permanent Collection seeks to inspire conversations about the staggering range of human toil and recreation and expands on the arc of these two concepts from the late 16th century to the present day. The show includes works by a wide range of artists, including Paul Cezanne, Hendrick Goltzius, David Hockney, Beth van Hoesen, Tom Miller, and Robert Rauschenberg.

Robyn Asleson: Curator of Prints and Drawings at the National Portrait Gallery 
Friday, March 31, 6 pm

Join us to hear Dr. Robyn Asleson speak about Mary Cassatt’s extraordinary life and work, touching on her take on domestic imagery and her support of women’s suffrage. Asleson will discuss many of Cassatt’s important works on view in Mary Cassatt: Labor & Leisure, including The Banjo Lesson, In the Omnibus, and Under the Horse Chestnut Tree. This lecture is part of the Kittredge-Wilson lecture series made possible by the generous support of Paul Wilson.

Robyn Asleson joined the National Portrait Gallery in 2016. Her exhibition projects at the Portrait Gallery include Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900–1939 (2024), the team-curated Kinship (2022), and Portraits of the World (2016-20), a series of spotlight exhibitions featuring individual portraits on loan from international museums, placed in conversation with works from the Portrait Gallery collection. She was venue curator for the exhibition John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal (2020) and is currently developing an exhibition of nineteenth-century American theatrical portraits, Staging America: Theater and National Identity, 1812-1912 (2026).

In 2016, Asleson co-organized the exhibition The Lost Symphony: Whistler and the Perfection of Art at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. The exhibition built on Asleson’s many publications on the Aesthetic Movement in the United States and Great Britain, including a monograph on the influential English painter Albert Moore (2000) and her prize-winning doctoral dissertation, Classic into Modern: The Inspiration of Antiquity in English Painting,1864-1918 (1993). Asleson holds B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Yale University.

Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), Mrs. Gardner Cassatt and Her Baby Seated Near a Window, 1889, Drypoint, Samuel Putnam Avery Collection, Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), Under the Horse-Chestnut Tree, 1896-97, Aquatint and drypoint on paper, Courtesy of Adelson Gallery
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), Baby Charles Looking Over His Mother’s Shoulder (no. 2), c. 1900, Pastel counterproof, Academy Art Museum Permanent Collection, Gift of Howard and Joanne Sorkin, 2019
Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008), Tibetan Garden Song, 1985 – 1986, Cello, Chrome-Plated Washtub, Glycerine, Chinese Scrollmaker’s Brush, Mirrored Ple, Gift of Drs. Donald and Ruth Saff in Honor of Anne and Philip Simon, 2007. Art @ Robert Rauschenberg Estate / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Included in Labor and Leisure in the Permanent Collection

As the premier art museum on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Academy Art Museum presents high-quality exhibitions and a full range of art classes for visitors of all ages. Past exhibitions have featured artists such as James Turrell, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Pat Steir and Richard Diebenkorn. The permanent collection focuses on works on paper by American and European artists from four centuries including recent acquisitions by Graciela Iturbide and Zanele Muholi. Arts educational programs range from life drawing lessons to digital art instruction, and include lunchtime and cocktail hour concerts, lectures and special art events, as well as a Fall Craft Show celebrating 25 years. AAM also provides arts education to school children from the region and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

Location: 106 South Street, Easton, Maryland
Hours: Tuesday-Wednesday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, Thursday-Friday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and Saturday-Sunday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Closed Mondays and Federal holidays.
Admission: Free

Currently on view at the Academy Art Museum: Earth Abides: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Cheryl Warrick: Abstract Surge and Hoesy Corona: Terrestrial Caravan.

Starting January 3, 2023, the Academy Art Museum will offer free admission to all. This is the crowning achievement in an institutional movement toward barrier-free access that started in 2021, when the Museum made most of its public programming free of charge, including book talks, artist lectures and summer programs. The Academy Art Museum joins other Maryland museums that also offer free admission, such as the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Museum. The Academy Art Museum is open Tuesday and Wednesday 10am to 4pm, Thursday and Friday 10am to 6pm, and Saturday and Sunday 10am to 4pm, and is located at 106 South Street in Easton, Maryland. Visit academyartmuseum.org for info on the newest exhibitions.

AAM Director Sarah Jesse notes, “The hidden barrier contained in an admission fee is not always how much it costs but the mental calculation – wondering how much it might be, adding it to weekly expenses. By eliminating this barrier to access, in concert with our other audience engagement efforts, we hope to foster a sense among our diverse community and beyond that AAM belongs to everyone.”

“Carolyn Williams (Past Board Chair, 2015-2017) proposed the idea when she led the museum and we are both overjoyed that it is now possible to put this change into effect, helping to welcome our entire community to all the exciting art and arts education the museum offers,” states Cathy McCoy, Past Board Chair (2018-2021) and Emeritus Trustee.

Many museums across the country offer free weekends thanks to generous donors or corporations such as the Bank of America “Museums on Us” program. However, with a 65^th anniversary approaching in 2023 and exciting exhibitions on the horizon for the Academy Art Museum, such as Mary Cassatt: Labor & Leisure, this is the perfect time to celebrate and share these accomplishments with the community by eliminating admission fees entirely. AAM Members will continue to receive many benefits ranging from exclusive member programming to discounts on classes and museum shop purchases.

Board of Trustees Chair Nanny Trippe declares, “Art is for everyone. We want everyone to enter and feel welcome to view and enjoy all of our wonderful exhibitions all year round.”

The Academy Art Museum was founded in 1958 by a group of Eastern Shore residents who created a place dedicated to the knowledge, practice, and appreciation of the arts. Today, AAM is home to a growing collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art, and transformative cultural experiences for everyone in the community including a Juneteenth celebration and an annual Craft Show.

Free admission to the Academy Art Museum is made possible by the combined generosity of individual members, friends, benefactors, and ongoing support from the Maryland State Arts Council and Talbot Arts.

As the premier art museum on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Academy Art Museum presents high-quality exhibitions and a full range of art classes for visitors of all ages. Past exhibitions have featured artists such as James Turrell, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Pat Steir and Richard Diebenkorn. The permanent collection focuses on works on paper by American and European artists from four centuries including recent acquisitions by Graciela Iturbide and Zanele Muholi. Arts educational programs range from life drawing lessons to digital art instruction, and include lunchtime and cocktail hour concerts, lectures and special art events, as well as a Fall Craft Show celebrating 25 years. AAM also provides arts education to school children from the region and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

Location: 106 South Street, Easton, Maryland
Hours:  Tuesday & Wednesday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, Thursday & Friday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, Saturday & Sunday 10 am to 4 pm. Closed Mondays and Federal holidays.
Admission: Free

On view at the Academy Art Museum: Student Art Exhibition, Earth Abides: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Cheryl Warrick: Abstract Surge and Hoesy Corona: Terrestrial Caravan.