Displaying items by tag: williams college museum of art

The Williams College Museum of Art has received a donation of 68 works of contemporary art from the collection of computer programmer and philanthropist Peter Norton.

WCMA is one recipient in a series of gifts to university and college art museums throughout the country. The art, from Norton’s personal collection, is intended to support the integration of the visual arts in higher education, to connect diverse audiences with contemporary art, and to foster creative museum practice.

The gift to WCMA is part of Norton’s second such philanthropic project, following one in 2000 in which he gave more than 1,000 pieces to 32 institutions.

Katy Kline, an experienced museum administrator, will serve as interim executive director of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln.

Starting Wednesday, May 14, she will take over until a replacement is found for former director Dennis Kois who has accepted a position at the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Kline said she’s “delighted’’ to “help keep things moving forward until the arrival of a permanent director.’’

Maurice Prendergast: By the Sea, which is now on view at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine, explores the artist’s lifelong fascination with the sea. Maurice Prendergast, a pioneering post-Impressionist painter, spent much of the late 19^th century and early 20^th century capturing modern life on the coast of New England.

 By the Sea is the first retrospective of Prendergast’s oeuvre in over two decades. The exhibition presents more than 90 works in a variety of media from over 30 public and private collections in addition to Bowdoin College Museum of Art’s own holdings. The exhibition traces the development of Prendergast’s highly personal style, which is recognized for its use of jewel-like colors and pattern-like compositions containing flattened, free-form figures. The exhibition also includes Prendergast’s sketchbooks and oil studies, allowing visitors to see into the Modernist artist’s creative process.

Highlights include the watercolor The Balloon, which is part of a private collection and has not been included in earlier Prendergast retrospectives; St. Malo, a bright watercolor on loan from the Williams College Museum of Art, which was lauded as one of the first American introductions of the bold European Post-Impressionist avant-garde; and a number of works that the artist contributed to the seminal Armory Show of 1913 (also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art).

Maurice Prendergast: By the Sea will be on view at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art through October 13, 2013.