When Dr. Rachel Franklin sits down to the piano, you know you are going to get a treat. This British-born concert pianist is a renowned teacher and performer in the Mid-Atlantic region.  Her acclaimed wit, scholarship and insights about music have led to countless speaking engagements for such distinguished organizations as the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and National Public Radio. Probably what makes her musical lectures so unique is that her topics explore intersections between classical and jazz music, film scores, and the fine arts while sharing the stories behind the music that we all love.

Franklin has taught at the Royal College of Music and the Peabody Conservatory, where she received her Doctorate of Musical Arts. She also studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School, the Royal College of Music, and the Rubin Academy of Music, Tel Aviv University, where she won First Prize in the school’s piano competition and received highest honors upon graduation. A regular presenter at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD, we sat down with her to learn more about what is behind her performing artistry and engaging style as she illustrates on the piano.

Q: Why were you drawn to the backstory of music in your teaching?

A: I did what we all do or we have done, you trot on the stage, you bow, you put your nice duds on, you play, you bow, and you come up again. Fairly early on I started to think I’d like to talk to my audience, as they’ve come all this way. I like this music and I thought I’d like to get to know them. So, I started to just do little descriptions from the piano bench, and I felt that was pretty important. People liked it and it just kind of went from there.

When I came to Peabody to do my doctorate, I got involved in teaching Elderhostel. This was quite a long time ago and many in my audience had been to war in Europe and they were very cultivated people and intensely interested in the connections that one could make through the different cultures. I wanted to let them know, as a recitalist, why they had bought the ticket. I wanted to share with them why the music is special and why they should trust their feelings and relate to the musical experience. I found every single time I did that, that I got an exceptionally warm response and people were very anxious to let me know that I’d made the concert experience better. It sort of validated what I was feeling – that audiences deserve love and respect. I learn and enjoy an enormous amount about why our world is the way it is now by doing this.

Q: How did you decide to do the upcoming class at the Academy Art Museum on Russian Masterworks?

A: As a concert pianist I’ve always loved Russian music. It’s amazing to play and amazing to listen to. Through Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, and so many other composers, Russia has provided us with some of the most exciting and original music in the repertoire today. Our concert halls always have Russian music programmed. The tradition of all those vibrant colors, explosive energy, and passionate emotional drive seemed to spring from nowhere barely 150 years ago, expanding meteorically in breadth and national confidence over an amazingly short period. It’s incredibly interesting to explore exactly why.

The fact is that Russian classical concert music didn’t really exist until at least the middle of the 19th century. For a country that is thousands of years old with such deep cultural riches and roots – that’s really extraordinary. Because of the stance of the Russian Orthodox Church, music was essentially a banned item, so musician guilds, as they had in France and Germany, didn’t develop. Musicians were flogged and instruments were burned for centuries. The divisions between the haves and the have nots just got wider and wider and there was no middle class to support music.  The wealthy decide to train up their serfs, so serf orchestras and serf opera houses became a thing. These musicians didn’t have tax status though and couldn’t move from town to town and be independent.

It took a long time for serfdom to be abolished. And only then could people leave their estates and go and do something else. In the mid-1800s, a pianist, Anton Rubinstein and his brother, Nicholas, worked and petitioned the Czar government to start conservatories in Moscow and Petersburg and to give musicians a legal tax status. These composers of the 19th century included Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninoff, and many others who I will cover in my upcoming lecture at the Academy Art Museum.

Q: What do you enjoy most about teaching at the Academy Art Museum?

A: I love the Academy Art Museum. I feel special every time I walk in the door. I think being in an art environment just enhances everyone’s experience. You know, you can walk out and go and wander around a gallery and think about what you’ve just heard related to what you see.  I also find, of course, that the people who come and attend are extremely cultivated. I mean, I’m a bit spoiled.

Q: Tell me about your jazz concert happening on April 28 at the museum?

A: This will be my classical/jazz chamber ensemble SONOS, which features myself on piano, and my two wonderful colleagues – a French Canadian violinist named Christian Tremblay, and fretless jazz bassist, Jonathan Miles Brown. It’s our trio’s third concert for the AAM and we’re really excited about it! We’ve performed widely throughout the area, including several highly successful concerts for the Friends of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra. We also anchored the orchestra’s “12 Days of Music” 2020 Holiday video performance series. Our music explores the cross-pollination between different types of musical art forms. Our programs are designed to tell the story of how these different musical subcultures could intersect.

The April concert is called “Coming to America” and will be a multimedia event. It is a passionate subject for me. It is a celebration of the incredibly rich musical traditions that came to this country from somewhere else. The music we enjoy today was brought by countless enslaved people, and immigrants who came here to escape persecution or for a better life. Every single person who either was carried off or crawled off the boat had music in their head. They brought their music with them. So, our program features spirituals, immigration songs, classical works, and jazz numbers. We feel this is an important program and we love it to death. We honor the types of people who came here and brought their music with them. They became part of and created the great musical traditions that are now American and that we celebrate today.

“Russian Masterworks: Music Lectures with Rachel Franklin” will be held on Thursdays, February 17, March 3, March 17 and March 31, 2022 from 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m. at the Academy Art Museum. The lectures are priced individually or for a series of four. Dr. Franklin’s free concert, “Coming to America,” will be held on April 28 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the museum. Pre-registration is required for these events. Visit academyartmuseum.org or call 410-822-2787 for further information.

The Academy Art Museum is pleased to announce the acquisition of three new artworks to the museum’s permanent collection: Graciela Iturbide, Nuestra Señora de las Iguanas, Juchitan, Mexico; Zanele Muholi, Vika II, The Decks, Cape Town; Fay Ku, Sea Change.

These new acquisitions align with the Academy Art Museum’s goals to collect the highest-quality work of accomplished artists, have a wider and more diverse representation of artists pushing boundaries in the field, and to deliver educational value through its recent acquisitions. “As a small museum located in a rural area, we’re thrilled to provide our audiences with access to these important artists and the compelling ideas their works explore. We are so fortunate to have generous supporters who are committed to growing this community resource.” said AAM Director Sarah Jesse

Graciela Iturbide, Nuestra Señora de las Iguanas, Juchitan, Mexico, 1979, silver gelatin print

Graciela Iturbide is an award-winning and widely-collected lens-based artist. She is invested in articulating a poetic retelling of the culture and history of indigenous people. Our Lady of the Iguanas pictures a Zapotec woman named Zubaida, whom Iturbide met in a market in the city of Juchitan. Iturbide would later observe that the women here had “an ethereal sense of self-possession.” At the market, most women would carry the goods they were selling on their heads, and Zubaida was precisely doing that with the iguanas, which would be sold as pets. Her immediate recognition of a woman selling iguanas as a poetic, powerful moment led to the making of the portrait.

Iturbide’s ability to reach a level of intimacy with her subjects, especially as a woman artist, is remarkable and meaningful. In Our Lady of the Iguanas, Iturbide not only presents an intimate look at a woman mystic, but also places her in the context of art history and colonial history. The iguanas that form a halo around the woman’s head, and the camera’s lower position, casts the woman as a saintly figure – an unlikely one whose present has been so deeply affected by the colonial past. Iturbide subtly and effortlessly parallels the depiction of religious icons in Mexico through photography. Our Lady of the Iguanas speaks to a viewer at multiple levels: it is easy to be surprised at the unusual relationship between the woman and the iguanas, and imagine her as a whisperer and a healer.

Graciela Iturbide (b. 1942, Mexico City, Mexico) is a photographer best known for her documentation of Mexico’s rural landscapes and the indigenous Juchitan, Mixtec, Seri, and Zapotec communities who live there. Her mysterious and poetic silver gelatin prints deliver her signature style of storytelling, which weaves the past and the present through imagery that initially appears to be timeless yet contains subtle details of modern life. Her best-known works picture women, casting them as mythical heroines juxtaposed against the dramatic terrain.

Iturbide’s work has been presented in solo exhibitions at major institutions, such as the Centre Pompidou (1982), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1990), Philadelphia Museum of Art (1997), John Paul Getty Museum (2007), MAPFRE Foundation, Madrid (2009), Photography Museum Winterthur (2009), Barbican Art Gallery (2012), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2019), and the National Museum of Women in the Arts (2020), among others. Iturbide is the recipient of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Foundation Award, 1987; the Grand Prize Mois de la Photo, Paris, 1988; a Guggenheim Fellowship for the project “Fiesta y Muerte”, 1988; the Hugo Erfurth Award, Leverkusen, Germany, 1989; The International Grand Prize, Hokkaido, Japan, 1990; The Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie Award, Arles, 1991; the Hasselblad Award, 2008; the National Prize of Sciences and Arts in Mexico City in 2008; an Honorary Degree in photography from Columbia College, Chicago in 2008; and an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2009.

Zanele Muholi, Vika II, The Decks, Cape Town, 2019, gelatin silver print

Zanele Muholi is one of the most inventive and accomplished image-makers today. Muholi’s work can be read simultaneously as a work of art and activism. The Somnyama Ngonyama series challenges pre-conceived societal notions of beauty because Muholi is in front of the camera as a dark-skinned Black person and is presented themselves as a beautiful, dignified subject. Muholi conceived of this series because of a sentiment that self-portraiture would yield a fruitful exploration of Black identity as well as a subversion of stereotypes.

Muholi’s gesture of biting into a circular wicker decorative object, possibly a fan or a placemat, feels gentle and imposing at the same time, as the subject’s stern look beckons the viewer to stop and take in the image in all its detail. The object itself is reminiscent of an African lip plate, a form of traditional body modification that has often been exoticized, and its wearers treated as a tourist attraction. Muholi teases the viewer with a form that resembles the plate, inviting the assumption that the subject is a mere object for the pleasure and curiosity of the viewer’s gaze. A closer look reveals that the object is not plate inside Muholi’s lip but merely a wicker disc the subject is playfully biting. Performing for the camera, Muholi complicates the dynamics of the image: the artist has all the control both as image-maker and subject. The work is also compelling due to its symmetry and beautiful contrast.

The work also relates to the history of photography because of the medium’s varying ability to depict different skin tones. The medium was developed to depict more nuance and tonality in lighter shades, and exposure recommendations were made using exclusively white models. As a result, analog and digital photography technology is less able to express a variety of tones at the darker end of the spectrum. Muholi highlights this by leaving the deep tone of skin untouched and uncorrected. The contrast between the light and the dark in their imagery also alludes to the symbolic use of darkness art history, as religious art often utilized the color white to depict goodness and the color black to depict devilishness, darkness, and sin. The legacy of this practice permeated through colonialism. As a sophisticated, layered and beautiful subject in front of the camera, Muholi challenges these notions meaningfully.

Zanele Muholi (b. South Africa, 1972) is an artist and visual activist working in photography, video, and installation. Muholi’s work focuses on identity, with a body of work that dates back to the early 2000s. Muholi was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2015, received an Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography in 2016, a Chevalier de Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2016, and an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 2018.

Solo exhibitions include the Cummer Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Tate Modern, and Stedelijk Museum, and Muholi’s work is in the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Art, Tate Modern, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Fay Ku, Sea Change, 2009, single-color lithograph

Fay Ku’s dreamy style delivers a potent exploration of femininity and features the symbols of peacock and koi fish from Chinese and Taiwanese culture. Her dynamically-toned and detailed lithography print pictures a mermaid-like figure, made dreamlike through Ku’s flowing lines and illustrative gradients and textures. The mermaid holds a bounty fish around her, and her simultaneous curvy tail and round figure alludes to sexuality and fertility. The illusory quality makes the work more complex and challenges the notion that a woman must either be coyly feminine or material. Ku also depicts some of the fish looking up at the mermaid in wonder, while others are devoured in the mermaid’s belly, and therefore balances the conventionally-optimistic explorations of fertility with its darker emotional obstacles.

Fay Ku (b. 1974 in Taipei, Taiwan; lives in Brooklyn, New York) is an artist whose narrative-driven, poetic works explore gender identity, cultural history, and societal change. Ku is the recipient of a 2007 Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant and 2009 New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship grant. She has exhibited extensively, including solo exhibitions at the Honolulu Museum of Art (Honolulu, Hawaii); New Britain Museum of American Art (New Britain, CT); and Snite Museum of Art (South Bend, IN). She has participated in several artist residencies including Wave Hill (The Bronx, NY); Lower East Side Printshop (New York, NY); and Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (Omaha, NE). Ku will be discussing her surreal artworks at the Academy Art Museum on Thursday, April 21st at 6pm as part of the free Kittredge Wilson Lecture Series. Reservations for the event can be made on AAM’s website.

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. AAM also provides arts education to public and private 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 10:00 am to 7:30 pm (free admission), Friday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, Saturday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and Sunday, 10 am to 4 pm. Closed Mondays and Federal holidays.
Admission: $3, children under 12 free, AAM members free.

The Academy Art Museum is thrilled to announce a new initiative for arts appreciators and emerging collectors under age 45 or those who have started to build their collections within the past three years. The Emerging Collectors Circle is a community program that seeks to make collecting art and engaging with the art world more accessible and to generate conversations about living with art.

Local businesswoman Allie Prell, Chair of the Academy Art Museum’s new Emerging Collectors Circle& Co-Owner of Trade Whims in Easton, comments, “I think that there are a lot of creative people in our community and I am looking forward to meeting the people who are going to be a part of this. The goal is to have this be something that is organic and that the people, who are a part of it, help create and make special.”

“Art as a whole, whatever the medium, is a way of expressing creativity – it’s a universal language that can open up doors and take down walls and bring a community together.”

Members of the Emerging Collectors Circle receive one signed limited-edition print by the Museum’s Artist-in-Residence per year, as well as invitations to programming throughout the year, such as curator-led visits to art fairs in the Mid-Atlantic, coffee talks on contemporary art at the Museum, and tailored advice on how to grow an art collection. Those who are exploring the idea of building an art collection or have recently started one are encouraged to join this vibrant community of fellow collectors and learn about opportunities to purchase affordable art. Having or wanting to start an art collection is not a requirement for membership; most of the group’s activities are geared towards fostering a community of individuals who are curious about art and are open to exploring the work of new artists in a wide variety of art mediums such as painting, photography, sculpture, graphic art, and illustration.

“I love the way that I’ve grown my own collection with my husband. Through exposure to our local Plein Air Easton and the Waterfowl Festival, we have purchased pieces we like and when we travel, we try to pick up something specific to that location whenever we can. We started that on our honeymoon,” Prell shares.

She credits her family with influencing her collection, including her mother where art was always in their home and her sister, who is a photographer.

“I love anything that can capture a moment or a feeling. I think that’s one of the reasons why Edward Hopper is my favorite artist. I would say I just love his work because I feel like when I look at it, I can be right there in it. It’s almost like it transports me,” she adds.

Prell shares that she is really excited about where the Academy Art Museum is going right now. She states, “I feel like the new director and curator understand the community and just want to make it better. This program is geared towards my generation on the Shore and will enable me to learn more about our community and to meet the artists who are coming here. It will also help me better understand why I collect and what I collect.”

“We hope to demystify the contemporary art world for people who don’t know how to start collecting or who are just starting to collect. Members will have access to activities every other month, such as a visit to the Smithsonian Craft Show this spring, behind-the-scenes museum tours, and visits to collectors’ homes and artists’ studios. It’s an enriching way to support AAM and artists, and grow as a collector,” states Sarah Jesse, Director of the Academy Art Museum.

“I am really excited to meet more people in this community who appreciate art and artists and are interested in being more involved with the Museum. This new community is a huge step towards our mission to have a wider audience, and through their participation, they support vital and accessible programming at the Museum,” states Mehves Lelic, the Museum’s Curator.

Dues per individual or household for the Emerging Collectors Circle are $250/year and will support evening programming for younger audiences at the Museum. Seasoned collectors are encouraged to join the Museum’s Collection Society. For further information on both, please visit https://bit.ly/AAMCollectionGroups or contact Mehves Lelic, Curator at the Museum at mlelic@academyartmuseum.org.

The Plein Air Painters of the Chesapeake Bay (PAPCB) and the Academy Art Museum’s “Saturdays en Plein Air” painters are pleased to invite the public to an outdoor Fence Show and Sale of recent Plein Air works on First Friday, September 3, 2021, from 5-7 p.m., at the Academy Art Museum, 106 South Street, Easton, Maryland.  Participating artists include Pasquale DiIulio, Rhonda Ford, Jenn Lenderking, Diane DuBois Mullaly, Martha Pileggi, Kate Quinn, Jose Ramirez, Jim Rehak, Russell Reno, Maggii Sarfaty, Stacy Sass, Will Schulze, Sheryl Southwick, Georgette Toews, Stephen Walker, Carol Wetowich, and Maureen Wheatley.

The public is invited to meet and greet all the artists, buy art, and enjoy the Academy Art Museum galleries where admission is free on First Fridays. A portion of proceeds from the sale of paintings will be donated to the museum.

PLEIN AIR PAINTERS OF THE CHESAPEAKE BAY (PAPCB) started in April 2014 with four local artists painting outdoors together on Tuesdays. Now with over 50 members, from beginning artists to well-known award winners, PAPCB has annual exhibits and organizes plein air paint outs every Tuesday; mid-March thru June, and September thru mid-November. Each concludes with a critique. All levels of painters in all mediums are welcome. Membership is free, the only requirement is to attend the paint outs and paint! For more info please contact Kate Quinn, shadowkhq@icloud.com.

THE ACADEMY ART MUSEUM’S “SATURDAYS EN PLEIN AIR” PAINTERS are a group of Academy Members who paint together the last Saturday of the month April through October, en plein air, at beautiful and interesting Mid-Shore locations. Organized and mentored by instructor Diane DuBois Mullaly, each paint out concludes with a critique. This event is a free perk for Academy membership. For more info please visit academyartmuseum.org.

For more information about the Academy Art Museum, please visit academyartmuseum.org. In the event of rain this event will occur inside the museum.

EXHIBITIONS

The following Academy Art Museum exhibitions are sponsored by Talbot Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, and the Star Democrat. Open daily, Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. and Sunday, 12 noon to 4 p.m.

Close Introspection: From Picasso to Kusama
Through October 4, 2021
First Friday Reception: August 6, 2021, 5:30 – 7:00 p.m.

Close Introspection: From Picasso to Kusama features works by critically acclaimed mid-to-late 20th century and contemporary artists, including Helen Frankenthaler, Judy Pfaff, Pablo Picasso, Martin Puryear, and Howardena Pindell, and explores the meditative dimension of the creative process. The works in the exhibition reveal the artistic predicament of deeply considering the nature and form of a chosen subject and re-articulating the subject in a transformative way. Much like the artist, the viewer is invited to first observe closely, then consider the wider context of each work, following the formal and stylistic threads the artists offer in their respective visual languages. Close Introspection: From Picasso to Kusama offers comparisons between works from the major movements of the 20th century, from European Abstraction and Abstract Expressionism to Feminist Art.

Recent Photography Acquisitions and Highlights from the Permanent Collection presents new and exciting additions of photographic works to the Museum’s Permanent Collection, alongside existing masterworks from the vault. Including prints by artists Ansel Adams, Aaron Siskind, Berenice Abbott, William Eggleston, John Gossage, Lisette Model, Eadweard Muybridge, Robert Rauschenberg and others, the selection offers an introduction to creative, historical and methodological motifs in 19th and 20th-century photography, celebrating the artists’ diverse thematic inquiries through the medium and their technical virtuosity.

ARTS EXPRESS BUS TRIP

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Date: September 26, 2019
Few artists have shaped the contemporary artistic landscape like Jasper Johns. With a body of work spanning seventy years, and a roster of iconic images that have imprinted themselves on the public’s consciousness, Johns at ninety is still creating extraordinary artworks. This vast, unprecedented retrospective— simultaneously staged at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York—features a stunning array of the artist’s most celebrated paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints as well as many lesser-known and recent works.

ADULT CLASSES

Camaraderie and Critique
Mentor: Diane DuBois Mullaly www.dianeduboismullaly.com
Eight weeks: September 2, 16, October 7, 21,
November 4, 18, December 2 and 16
Thursdays, 5–6 p.m.
Zoom

Basic Potter’s Wheel
Instructor: Paul Aspell
Six Weeks: September 15 –October 20 and
November 10–December 15
Wednesdays, 9:30–11:30 a.m.

Introduction to Pastel Workshop
Instructor: Katie Cassidy wkmcgarry@verizon.net
Two-Day Workshop: September 11 and 12
Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m.–1 p.m.

Weekend Workshop: Landscapes in the Tonalist Tradition
Instructor: Meg Walsh
megwalshart@gmail.com megwalsh.com
Two-Day Workshop: September 18 and 19
Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Basic Drawing: The Fundamentals
Instructor: Katie Cassidy wkmcgarry@verizon.net
Six weeks: September 28–November 2
Tuesdays: 10 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Portrait Drawing in Charcoal
Instructor: Bradford Ross
brad@bradfordross.com
Four weeks: September 16–October 7
Thursdays, 10 a.m.–2:30 p.m.

Beyond Pencil and Brush – Enriching Your Toolbox
Instructor: Sheryl Southwick
sherylartist@gmail.com
Three-Day Workshop: September 22–23 and
October 19–21
Monday-Thursday, 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Fundamentals of Photography: Part 1: Tame Your Camera
Instructor: Sahm Doherty-Sefton
Three Weeks: September 23, 30, October 7
Thursday evenings, 5:30–7:30 p.m.

Workshop: Oil Painting 101 – Back to Painting Basics
Instructor: Bernard Dellario
bernie.dellario@gmail.com
Three-Day Workshop: September 17, 18 and 19
Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m.–3 p.m.

Watercolor Workshop: Painting Glass
Instructor: Maggii Sarfaty
maggiipaints1@yahoo.com
Two-Day Workshop: September 29 and 30
Wednesday and Thursday, 1–3 p.m.

Pastel Painting – Value and Color
Instructor: Katie Cassidy
wkmcgarry@verizon.net
Five weeks: September 29–October 27
Wednesdays, 10 a.m.–1 p.m.

Saturdays en Plein Air!
Mentor: Diane DuBois Mullaly www.dianeduboismullaly.com
Monthly: The last Saturday of each month, April through October, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
FREE to members of the Museum. No registration required.

CHILDREN’S CLASSES

Home School Classes
Early Fall Session:
Fridays, September 10 – October 22
(Note that there is no class on October 15)
1:00–2:30 p.m.
Late Fall Session:
Fridays, October 29 – December 17
(Note that there are no classes on November 12 or 26)
1:00 to 2:30 p.m.
The Museum offers art classes for home-schooled children, ages 6 and up. Classes focus on fine art techniques and materials. A variety of media will be explored and students will have the opportunity to visit the Museum’s exhibitions. Pre-registration is advised as space is limited in each group.

Family Art Days
HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH
For Children Ages 6+ And Their Families
Saturday, September 18, 10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m.
Stop by the Museum to create a variety of projects inspired by the artwork on view and Latin American crafts.

PERFORMING ARTS CLASSES

Piano & Guitar Lessons
Instructor: Raymond Remesch
Contact Instructor for further information at (410) 829-0335 or rayremesch@gmail.com

Voice Lessons
Instructor: Georgiann Gibson
Contact instructor for Information at (410) 829-2525 or georgiann@atlanticbb.net.

For additional information, visit academyartmuseum.org or call the Museum at 410-822-2787.

EXHIBITIONS

The following Academy Art Museum exhibitions are sponsored by Talbot Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, and the Star Democrat. Open daily, Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. and Sunday, 12 noon to 4 p.m.

Close Introspection: From Picasso to Kusama
August 6 – October 4, 2021
First Friday Reception: August 6, 2021, 5:30 – 7:00 p.m.

Close Introspection: From Picasso to Kusama features works by critically acclaimed mid-to-late 20th century and contemporary artists, including Helen Frankenthaler, Judy Pfaff, Pablo Picasso, Martin Puryear, and Howardena Pindell, and explores the meditative dimension of the creative process. The works in the exhibition reveal the artistic predicament of deeply considering the nature and form of a chosen subject and re-articulating the subject in a transformative way. Much like the artist, the viewer is invited to first observe closely, then consider the wider context of each work, following the formal and stylistic threads the artists offer in their respective visual languages. Close Introspection: From Picasso to Kusama offers comparisons between works from the major movements of the 20th century, from European Abstraction and Abstract Expressionism to Feminist Art.

Recent Photography Acquisitions and Highlights from the Permanent Collection
August 6–October 3
First Friday Reception: August 6, 5:30–7:00 p.m.
This exhibition presents new and exciting additions of photographic works to the Museum’s Permanent Collection, alongside existing masterworks from the vault. Including prints by artists Ansel Adams, Aaron Siskind, Berenice Abbott, William Eggleston, John Gossage, Lisette Model, Eadweard Muybridge, Robert Rauschenberg and others, the selection offers an introduction to creative, historical and methodological motifs in 19th and 20th century photography, celebrating the artists’ diverse thematic inquiries through the medium and their technical virtuosity.

ADULT CLASSES

Adult Class Scholarships – Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Pastels, Watercolor, and much more.
All Materials are Included. Contact Katie Cassidy for details at wkmcgarry@verizon.net for further information. Visit academyartmuseum.org for a full listing of classes. Scholarships are made possible through a generous grant from the Mid-Shore Community Foundation.

Beyond Pencil and Brush – Enriching your Toolbox
Instructor: Sheryl Southwick sherylartist@gmail.com
Four-Day Workshop: August 2-5
Three-Day Workshops: September 21-23 and October 19-21
Monday-Thursday, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

6th Annual Summer Challenge via Zoom! – A Painting a Day for 14 Days
Instructor: Diane DuBois Mullaly www.dianeduboismullaly.com
3 Weeks: August 5, 12, 19
Thursdays, 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Workshop: ZOOM – The Business of Art-Get Your Finances Organized!
Instructor: Bernard Dellario bernie.dellario@gmail.com
1 Day Workshop: August 6
Thursday, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Workshop: Individual Still Life Creations
Instructor: Meg Walsh megwalshart@gmail.com www.megwalsh.com
Two-Day Workshop: August 7 and 8
Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Pastel Workshop: Beautiful Beaches, Skies and Seascapes
Instructor: Katie Cassidy wkmcgarry@verizon.net
Three-Day Workshop: August 10, 11 and 12
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Printmaking: Gel Plate Variations
Instructor: Rosemary Cooley rcooley1@mac.com
Three-Day Workshop: August 13, 14 and 15
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 10 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

Craft Workshop: Dollhouse Doll Making
Instructor: Maggii Sarfaty maggiipaints1@yahoo.com
Two-Day Workshop: August 17 and 18
Tuesday and Wednesday, 1 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Workshop: Plein Air Landscape Painting
Instructor: Bernard Dellario bernie.dellario@gmail.com
3 Days: August 20, 21 and 22
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Saturdays en Plein Air!
Mentor: Diane DuBois Mullaly www.dianeduboismullaly.com
Monthly: The last Saturday of each month, April through October, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
FREE to members of the Museum. No registration required.

CHILDREN’S CLASSES

MIX IT UP – Creating and Experimenting
Ages 9-14
Instructor: Susan Horsey
Monday–Friday, August 2–6
10:00 a.m. –12:00 noon

Video Wizardry
Ages 9–13
Instructor: Ray Remesh
Monday–Friday, August 9–13
9:00–11:30 a.m.

PERFORMING ARTS CLASSES

Piano & Guitar Lessons
Instructor: Raymond Remesch
Contact Instructor for further information at (410) 829-0335 or rayremesch@gmail.com

Voice Lessons
Instructor: Georgiann Gibson
Contact instructor for Information at (410) 829-2525 or georgiann@atlanticbb.net.

For additional information, visit academyartmuseum.org or call the Museum at 410-822-2787.

The Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD has recently published two exhibition catalogues on its current exhibitions, Miró in New York, 1947: Miró, Hayter and Atelier 17 and Norma Morgan: Enchanted World.

Miró in New York, 1947: Miró, Hayter and Atelier 17 explores a group of little-known etchings Joan Miró made with influential British printmaker Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17, the New York outpost of his seminal printmaking studio in Paris. Both Miró and Hayter were key participants in the community of artists in Paris who ultimately formed the core of international movements in contemporary art from the 1930s to 1945. The exhibition is open to the public through July 8, 2021 and viewable online through August 1, 2021.

Mehves Lelic, Curator at the Academy Art Museum comments, “The catalogue explores a transformative moment in the history of printmaking when Spanish artist Joan Miró visits New York and enters an exciting world of experimentation and collaboration at Atelier 17, Stanley William Hayter’s famed printmaking studio. Together, the artists at the Atelier embrace the importance of process and discover new frontiers in the medium.”

“The rich color gradients, dynamic lines and overlapping textures in the prints in this exhibition may offer encouragement and respite as we recover from this past year’s pandemic. Many of the prints in the exhibition were created soon after the end of World War II, by artists who experienced its tumult and horrors first-hand. The historical and artistic underpinnings of the works in Miró in New York, 1947 are complex, and beckon the viewer to connect with them on multiple levels, from an understanding of the historical context of the convergence of so many great artists at Atelier 17, to what experimental methods such as cutting into a printing plate, using soldering wire, and achieving simultaneous color printing mean for the present moment of printmaking in contemporary art,” she adds.

Works are drawn from the Museum’s Permanent Collection and loans from Dolan/Maxwell Gallery, Philadelphia, and private collections. The exhibition catalogue includes the wide breadth of experimental and collaborative work done at Atelier 17, with pieces by Fred Becker, Terry Haass, Gabor Peterdi, Anne Ryan, Yves Tanguy, Helen Phillips, Alice Trumbull-Mason, and others, all of whom worked in Atelier 17 alongside Hayter and Miró.

Norma Morgan: Enchanted World is an exhibition of the late artist’s prints, watercolors, paintings and drawings. The exhibition highlights Morgan’s ability to convey a spiritual experience through her landscape and portraiture work and to effortlessly transition from formal observation to magical wonder. The exhibition will be open to the public through August 1, 2021.

Lelic explains, “The planning of Norma Morgan: Enchanted World started out with a simple aim: to do the artist’s profoundly compelling work justice. As a young artist and a student of Stanley William Hayter, whose printmaking legacy is explored in-depth in the concurrent exhibition Miró in New York, 1947, Norma Morgan was responsive to contemporary ideas and open to advancing her technical skills. She was also a pioneer as one of the two known African-American women to work at the studio.”

“This exhibition seeks to highlight the overall significance of Morgan’s prolific career of over 50 years, during which the artist conjured an entire magical realm, from homages to Civil Rights icons to haunting observations of the landscapes of Great Britain and the Catskills. The rich textures and subtle details in her work parallel the imposing yet quiet vistas she was fond of and which she depicted with remarkable technical skill and fluency across multiple mediums.”

The Academy Art Museum is proud to present this exhibition with loans from the Kerry and C. Betty Davis Collection of African American Art, Mr. Donnell and Mrs. Dorothea Walker Collection of African American Art, Mr. Freddie Styles, Mr. Darryl Love, and Dolan/Maxwell. The exhibition catalog features essays by art historians Dr. Amalia Amaki and Dr. Christina Weyl.

For further information on these exhibitions or to purchase an exhibition catalogue, visit academyartmuseum.org or call 410-822-2787. The cost of each catalogue is $20.