Work of the Week: Unknown Artist after Sebastiano Serlio,“Study for a Stage Design: Street Lined with Palatial Buildings”

Posted on August 22, 2022 by Dr. Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, Rollins Museum of Art

We do not know who drew this delicate ink and chalk drawing. We do know, however, that it is a copy of a woodcut from a book rather famous at the time, the Second Book on Perspective by Italian architect and theorist Sebastiano Serlio (published in 1545). Today, Serlio is remembered as the author of the first architectural treatise in a modern language to be printed with illustrations, also the first to devote an entire section to the theatre. That is where we find the source image for this drawing, titled The Tragic Scene. The drawing may have been a lesson in perspective (apprentices repeatedly copied works by other artists in order to master various skills, types of compositions, or media), or a point of departure for a different composition.

Work of the Week: David Hilliard, “Wiser than Despair”

Posted on June 13, 2022 by Dr. Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, Rollins Museum of Art

David Hilliard(American, b. 1964), Wiser Than Despair, 2012, C-print, 24 in. x 80 in. The AlfondCollection of Contemporary Art at Rollins College, Gift of Barbara ’68 and Theodore ’68Alfond, 2013.34.12. Image courtesy of the artist and Carroll and Sons, Boston.…

Work of the Week: Catherine Yass, “Lighthouse (North north west, distant)”

Posted on May 2, 2022 by Dr. Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, Rollins Museum of Art

Catherine Yass (British, b. 1963), Lighthouse (North north west, distant), 2011, Photographic transparency, lightbox, 50 ¾ x 40 ¾ in., The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art at Rollins College, Gift of Barbara ’68 and Theodore ’68 Alfond. 2020.1.11 © Catherine Yass. Image courtesy Galerie Lelong…

Lavinia Fontana: The Dead Christ with Symbols of the Passion

Posted on March 28, 2022 by Dr. Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, Rollins Museum of Art

Outside of my bias of having been trained as an Italienist, The Dead Christ with Symbols of the Passion, is one of the most important Old Masters in our collection (as a mature work by one of the few female…

Work of the Week: Käthe Kollwitz, “Untitled (Mob [Family] with Dead Child)”

Posted on March 14, 2022 by Dr. Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, Rollins Museum of Art

Käthe Kollwitz (German, 1867–1945), Untitled (“Mob [Family] with Dead Child”), n.d., Dry point etching, Gift of Mrs. Ruth Funk, Cornell Fine Arts Museum 2001.04.09.PR Where history provides perspective and comparison, art provides context and comfort. Historical art often provides both. That is why I…

The Notion of Place

Posted on July 13, 2021 by Dr. Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, Rollins Museum of Art

Last season, it had been two years since we introduced the theme of Place as Metaphor for our main collection gallery. Every season, we changed the installation somewhat, brought in new acquisitions and old favorites that had not been on…

Ridley Howard: Paintings & Moments

Posted on July 1, 2021 by Dr. Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, Rollins Museum of Art

Earlier this week I happened to get off the elevator on the second floor of The Alfond Inn. I had not been on that floor recently, so it had been a while since I had seen Ridley Howard’s Motel Pool. …

Jordan Casteel: Voice and Process

Jordan Casteel: Voice & Process

Posted on June 16, 2021 by Dr. Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, Rollins Museum of Art

Jordan Casteel and I have Italy and New York in common as career influencers. It was during a semester spent in Cortona as an undergraduate that Casteel decided to switch her major from sociology and anthropology to art. Later, while…

Exuberance in Nicole Eisenman’s Painting

Posted on June 1, 2021 by Dr. Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, Rollins Museum of Art

Last summer, when our museum was closed due to the pandemic and the future was very uncertain, we started looking for new ways to keep more closely in touch with our diverse publics: students, life-long learners, members, donors. We introduced virtual programs…

THE POWER OF ART IN A WORLD OF COVID-19

Posted on March 25, 2020 by Dr. Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, Rollins Museum of Art

Back in January, we included Aquarium, a 3D video animation work by Cuban artist Sandra Ramos, in our museum’s collection installation, The Place as Metaphor: Collection Conversations. The narrative crafted by Ramos responded to the theme on multiple levels: it…

The Different Lives Of Women

Posted on March 5, 2019 by Dr. Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, Rollins Museum of Art

This post was written in 2019 and has been edited to update pertinent information. Rina Banerjee’s Her captivity was once someone’s treasure… combines historical objects (a Victorian birdcage, a 19th-century New England table) with elements both natural (gourds, feathers, shells,…

A Museum’s Raison D’Etre: Art Encounters Catalog at Rollins Museum of Art

Posted on January 7, 2019 by Dr. Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, Rollins Museum of Art

I read somewhere that collections are what museums are; exhibitions, what they do. This makes perfect sense, of course. Except for the comparatively rare kunsthalle (a German word roughly translated to “art gallery” but used in English to mean non-collecting…

Seductress or Rape Victim? Potiphar’s Wife in Art And Literature

Posted on September 27, 2018 by Dr. Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, Rollins Museum of Art

One of the paintings in our current exhibition, Dangerous Women: Selections from the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art , depicts an episode from the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, as recounted in the biblical book of Genesis.…

Dangerous Women: Renaissance Painters at Rollins Museum of Art

Posted on August 25, 2018 by Dr. Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, Rollins Museum of Art

One of the rarest paintings in the Cornell Fine Arts Museum’s collection is Lavinia Fontana’s Dead Christ with Symbols of the Passion. Dated 1581, It is one of only 32 signed and dated (or datable) works by the artist. Lavinia…

A Closer Look At Our Summer Exhibitions: From Pump Manufacturing To Old Masters Paintings

Posted on August 6, 2018 by Dr. Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director, Rollins Museum of Art

How do paintings from an art-filled, Ohio home become the core of the only European Old Masters museum collection in the Orlando area? The story began in 1870. Family patriarch, Francis Eunoch Myers, arrived in Ashland, OH to work as…