Lunder Wing at Colby Museum Will Soon Reopen
With the reinstallation of 11 galleries, titled Some American Stories, the museum focuses on expanding narratives to reveal the complexities of the American experience
The Lunder Wing of the Colby College Museum of Art will reopen September 26 with all 11 of its galleries newly installed with American art from the museum’s permanent collection.
The thematic approach to this major installation, titled Some American Stories, will showcase a variety of artworks, including paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, and works on paper, drawn from the museum’s collection. Collectively, the newly installed wing will lead visitors on a journey from before the founding of the United States to current times, reflecting the great diversity of the American experience, including Indigenous artworks throughout the galleries. Each gallery functions as an individual story within the broader narrative of American art.
“The art is all part of what could be considered the larger story of American art that we are telling, but each piece of art and each gallery has its own story, too,” said Sarah Humphreville, Lunder Curator of American Art. “Some galleries focus on a specific historical event, such as the Civil War, while others are more grounded in place, like the gallery that is devoted to the art of Maine. Others are dedicated to grand human themes, like religion.”
The gallery themes include revolutions, encompassing armed confrontations and other uprisings; trade and commerce; landscape; folk art and American Modernism; the American West; women in the Gilded Age; and Neoclassical sculpture. In addition, the museum is reinstating a works-on-paper gallery overseen by Elisa Germán, Lunder Curator of Works on Paper and Whistler Studies, that will present six-month rotations from the collection.
“With a new gallery dedicated to works on paper, we’re excited to showcase our collection of over 7,500 prints, drawings, and photographs to expand upon the broader stories being presented in the Lunder Wing,” said Germán. “Given the light-sensitive nature of these works of art, the benefit is that we will be able to treat visitors to dynamic narratives every six months that will highlight the wide range of creative expression in the Americas and beyond.”
New acquisitions include installation by Nari Ward
In all, the reinstallation of the Lunder Wing involves more than 110 pieces of art, including key works that represent the Colby Museum’s strength in American art as well as new acquisitions. Key among these will be the commission OH FREEDOM!, a new installation by Nari Ward that is based on a Black American spiritual and will be composed of shoelaces. Approximately half of the works on view were given to the museum by Peter Lunder ’56, D.F.A. ’98 and Life Trustee Paula Lunder, D.F.A. ’98 and are part of the Lunder Collection, which includes more than 1,700 works of American art from the 19th century to the present.
The Lunders made the initial gift of the Lunder Collection to Colby in 2013 and have added to the gift in the years since. “This major project would not be possible without the extraordinary Lunder Collection, which has been game-changing for us, and for the field of American art, since it arrived at Colby,” said Beth Finch, head curator. The wing will also feature four stellar paintings on loan from the Terra Foundation as part of the Terra Collection-in-Residence Program.
While the artwork on view in the Lunder Wing galleries has changed over time, this reinstallation is the first full reenvisioning of the space since 2013. Humphreville described approaching the reinstallation as similar to “threading a needle. We hope the galleries will feel very different but also familiar at the same time.”
Among the highlights of the reinstallation are iconic works by Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, Joshua Johnson, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and James McNeill Whistler as well as recently acquired pieces by Edmonia Lewis, Agnes Pelton, and Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti Pueblo), whose sculpture Omtua was featured in the museum’s lauded Painted: Our Bodies, Hearts, and Village exhibition.
The reinstallation allows the museum to display works that have never, or rarely, been shown to the public and to reinterpret familiar work by looking at it anew. Among the previously unexhibited pieces is a hand-painted glass plate by Marguerite Zorach from 1925. It came to the museum in 1980 as a gift from the artist Dahlov Ipcar, Zorach’s daughter. “We have never shown that work before,” Humphreville said. “Exhibiting it will show how modern painters were also embedded in the decorative arts and informed by folk art traditions. That’s the fun part of undertaking a reinstallation like this. You discover new things, and you discover new things about things you thought you knew well in a new way.”
An example of a new perspective on a familiar piece is the dramatic landscape painting Mount Katahdin from the West Branch of the Penobscot (1870) by Virgil Williams, who was born in Dixfield, Maine, became director of the San Francisco School of Design, and was cofounder of the San Francisco Art Association. The painting could have hung in galleries dedicated to the art of Maine or landscape painting, but it will appear in one that focuses on religion and spirituality because Wabanaki people consider Katahdin a sacred site.
Toward the goal of expanding visitors’ opportunities to understand the art more deeply, the museum has interpretive texts that introduce the artwork, artists, and gallery themes. Curators and members of the museum’s learning and engagement team contributed reflections on the art, and the museum also commissioned students, Colby faculty members, experts from other institutions and communities, and artists to contribute to the project.
Robust interpretation is one way to welcome people to the museum, Humphreville added. “People can choose to engage with text or not, but we know that many people who come here are coming to the museum for the first time. We want to help orient them to begin looking at the art and exploring ways they can understand and appreciate it.”
Some American Stories is curated by Sarah Humphreville, Lunder Curator of American Art, with Augusta Weiss, Anne Lunder Leland Curatorial Fellow. The Gourley Gallery works-on-paper installation is curated by Elisa Germán, Lunder Curator of Works on Paper and Whistler Studies.
Some American Stories is made possible through Colby Museum endowment funds provided by the Lunder Foundation, as well as the generous support of Vice Chair of the Museum Board of Governors Alice J. Kang and OhSang Kwon, and the Terra Foundation for American Art.
The reinstalled Lunder Wing will open September 26. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. During the academic year, the museum is open Thursdays until 9 p.m.
