The Bennington Museum invites everyone to Community Day on February 3 when admission is FREE and the “Creative Collisions” among the galleries are explosive. Explore the newly installed Grandma Moses Gallery with paintings like Thunderstorm, 1948, which has not been at the Museum in over two decades. On loan from a private collector, this iconic painting enhances the walls of the gallery along with Old Oaken Bucket, 1946, which has never been installed at Bennington Museum. “We are thrilled to have such iconic works here at the Museum,” states Jamie Franklin, curator at the Museum. “These are joined by other masterworks from the Museum’s collection as well as Deep Snow, 1959, and A Christmas Gift, 1946, both from the private collection of the Zarnegin family, Beverly Hills, California. Any person who admires Moses’ work and wants to get another perspective on what she created, must be sure to visit in 2018.”
In the Regional Artists Gallery located next to the Moses Gallery, the Museum presents Enthusiasms: Personal Paintings by Jessica Park. This exhibition is on view through May 28 and focuses on a lesser-known aspect of Park’s work, featuring work created during the first decade of her career as well as more recent paintings from the last decade which were created at the artist’s own initiative for herself or as gifts for family and friends. Park is best known for her depictions of architecture, though early in her career she often painted whimsical images of electronic gadgets, signs, logos, and characters from popular culture, all of which still deeply fascinate the artist to this day. These works reflect Park’s personal interests, or “enthusiasms” as she calls them, in popular culture, astronomical phenomenon, and prismatic lights and color, natural or man-made, often configured in tightly controlled grid-like structures. Park’s images depict everyday objects with precise attention paid to the most mundane of details, along with scientifically accurate illustrations of rare and unusual astronomical phenomenon, seamlessly brought together into fantastical combinations. This is all done in a brilliant, carefully calculated color palette and intricate patterning that seems to almost vibrate with energy.

Park’s work can be found in the Regional Artists Gallery while paintings by Gayleen Aiken are on view in the John T. Harrison, Jr. Orientation Hall where they are juxtaposed with photographs by Duane Michals in an installation entitled Magic and Mystery.

Opening the year in the Museum’s Works on Paper Gallery is A Century of Caring on view through May 6. In celebration of the Southwestern Vermont Health Care’s centennial, this exhibition begins one hundred years ago when Putnam Memorial Hospital opened its doors in Bennington. It features images and objects from the early days of the Hospital up through its most current story.

Explore the permanent exhibitions including one of the newest galleries Early Vermont. Opened in the fall 2017, Early Vermont is a permanent installation with rotating textiles, and presents life in Vermont from the time when the earliest European settlers arrived in 1761 with only the bare necessities to the early 1800s when Vermont craftsmen achieved a level of sophistication rivaling Boston and New York. This gallery showcases over 85 major pieces and smaller items from the Museum’s extensive historical collection of over 30,000 objects.

In the adjacent galleries through March 13 is the Annual Student Art Show bringing artwork of the region’s elementary, middle and high school students to the Museum in a display ranging from whimsical projects by the young students to more advanced work of older students. Visitors can explore the artistic development of children as they address a particular topic or by age grouping. Ceramic work, paper sculptures, and more complement collage, pastels, and pen and ink drawings.

The changing exhibitions are varied, very exciting, and showcase art, history, and innovation. Be sure to visit often to see what else the Museum has planned. Watch too for great events such as presentations by the Bennington Historical Society, Music at the Museum on March 11, and other great events like the Museum’s Spring Party on April 13 and its Tattoo event on April 28. Mark your calendars now so you don’t miss out.