Calendar

From the Gibson Girl to the Flapper, women's fashion evolution from the early 1900s to the 1920s in the United States was due to new economic and social factors for women. These three decades were a defining time as many women fought for the right to vote, joined the work force during World War I, and changed the traditional social norms for women from the previous century.

Capturing a likeness goes back to the earliest of times, however, with the invention of cameras in the 1800s, portraits became more popular and easily attainable. Cartes-de-visite and Cabinet Cards were albumen prints mounted on small cards, typically portraits of the subject. The Cartes-de-visite, invented in France, were smaller cards made between the 1860s and 1870s. A larger portrait, called the Cabinet Card, was popular up until the late 1900s. Professional photographers typically took photographs in their studios and made several copies of the cards for the individual to give to friends and family. Tintypes, popular from the 1850s until the 1890s, were sometimes a cheaper option than earlier daguerreotypes for those part of the working classes.

The photographs in this exhibition are from the permanent collection of The Grace Museum. Although most of the individuals in the photographs (besides those of the royal family) are anonymous, their clothing, their pose, their gaze, all are signs of the Victorian Era they lived in.

Photographer David H. Gibson met David McManaway in 1964. A long friendship followed and in 1993 Gibson began documenting McManaway’s extraordinary studio. A visit to McManaway’s studio was akin to stepping into one of McManaway’s works of art; walls, ceilings and table tops covered with carefully selected cultural castoffs silently awaiting a second chance as fine art. Gibson’s photographs of the studio, dismantled after McManaway’s death in 2010, are as close as we can get to walking into McManaway’s unique, (Mojo) Jomo themed amusement park.

The fine art of found objects defied the status quo to become a major art movement in the last decades of the 20th century. Inspired by Picasso and Braque’s 1912 experiments with paper and print and Marcel Duchamp’s “readymades”, Dada and Surrealism made anything and everything a medium for serious art making. Appropriation of images from popular culture took the form in realistic paintings of objects, collage work and printmaking. Subsequently, the appropriation of found objects into two and three-dimensional mixed media assemblage work became the bedrock of 21st century, interactive, art installations. This exhibition presents a selection of art work based on appropriated found objects in a variety of media selected from The Grace Museum permanent collection by Kirk Hayes, Robert Rauschenberg, Vernon Fisher, Linda Ridgway, Martin Delabano, William Farr, and Clint Hamilton.

The story of women's suffrage is a story of voting rights, of inclusion in and exclusion from the franchise, and of our civic development as a nation. Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence, a poster exhibition from the Smithsonian, celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment and explores the complexity of the women's suffrage movement and the relevance of this history to Americans' lives today.

Christian Robinson, emerging, millennial, Black illustrator, [and] all around incredible human is passionate about telling stories with pictures. Born in Hollywood, California, in 1986, he grew up in a small one-bedroom apartment with his brother, two cousins, aunt, and grandmother. Drawing became a way to make space for himself in a world crowded with loving others. 'Picture books especially are many children’s first introduction to the world. Seeing yourself is almost like a message, it’s saying: you matter, you are visible, and you’re valuable.' – Christian Robinson