Marcel Duchamp - Hommage à Caissa (for the Marcel Duchamp Fund of the American Chess Foundation), 1966

Marcel Duchamp - Hommage a Caissa (for the Marcel Duchamp Fund of the American Chess Foundation) , 1966

This rare 1966 silkscreen poster commemorates the "Hommage à Caissa" exhibition at New York’s Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery, a fundraiser organized by Marcel Duchamp for the American Chess Foundation. The event featured contributions from 36 iconic artists, including Salvador Dalí, Jasper Johns, and Alexander Calder, and is famously remembered for Andy Warhol’s uninvited "guerrilla attack" appearance with the Velvet Underground. The poster's design incorporates RSVP cards sent to participating artists, some featuring personal notes and autographs.

joshua johnson

Joshua Johnson, born into slavery in Maryland around 1763, emerged in the late 18th century as the first documented Black professional artist in the United States. After gaining his freedom in 1782, Johnson established himself in Baltimore as a self-taught portraitist, advertising his services in local newspapers and catering to the city's prominent families. His body of work, consisting of approximately 83 attributed paintings, is characterized by a distinct flatness and three-quarter profile compositions typical of early American folk art.

marcia resnick photographer punk scene dead

Marcia Resnick, a photographer renowned for capturing Manhattan's downtown art and punk scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s, has died at age 74 from lung cancer. Her sister Janice Hahn confirmed the cause of death. Resnick began with conceptual photography before shifting to portraiture, documenting figures such as Mick Jagger, Klaus Nomi, Joseph Beuys, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ed Koch, and John Belushi. She was briefly married to MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer and taught at New York University and Cooper Union. Her work was featured in the SoHo Weekly News, and a retrospective of her photography opened at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in 2022.

11 art exhibits across Maine you shouldn’t miss this fall - Portland Press Herald

The Portland Press Herald highlights 11 art exhibitions across Maine for fall, including shows at Bates College Museum of Art, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, and Colby Museum of Art. Featured exhibitions include "Shelburne Thurber: Full Circle" and "Precision and Expression: American Studio Ceramics from the E. John Bullard Collection" at Bates; "Gordon Parks: Herklas Brown and Maine, 1944" and "Medieval Art from the Wyvern Collection" at Bowdoin; the CMCA 2025 Biennial with 29 selected artists; and "Gertrude Abercombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery" and "Is anything the matter? Drawings by Laylah Ali" at Colby.

Women on the Verge: Five Museums in Maine Showcase Nicole Wittenberg and Ann Craven

Five museums across Maine are simultaneously presenting exhibitions featuring the work of painters Nicole Wittenberg and Ann Craven, in a coordinated initiative titled "Women on the Verge." The participating institutions include the Portland Museum of Art, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, and the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland. Each venue is showing a distinct body of work by either Wittenberg or Craven, highlighting their vibrant, often nature-inspired paintings that explore themes of femininity, perception, and the natural world.

Summer shows include multiple exhibitions viewing nature through 2 artists’ work - Portland Press Herald

Multiple Maine museums are collaborating this summer to present simultaneous exhibitions of two mid-career gestural painters, Nicole Wittenberg and Ann Craven, whose work deeply engages with nature and landscape painting. Wittenberg's shows include "A Sailboat in the Moonlight" at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art (through July 20), "Nicole Wittenberg: Cheek to Cheek" at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (through Sept. 14), and a Paris exhibition at the Fondation Le Corbusier. Craven's exhibitions span the Farnsworth Art Museum ("Ann Craven: Painted Time," through Jan. 4, 2026), the Portland Museum of Art ("Spotlight: Ann Craven," May 14 to Sept. 14), and Bowdoin College Museum of Art (starting May 22).

2 art exhibits in Woolwich, Portland illuminate in more ways than one - Portland Press Herald

Two solo exhibitions by artists Josefina Auslender and Billy Gerard Frank are on view in Woolwich and Portland, Maine, through mid-May. Auslender's "La Chimera de Oro (The Golden Chimera)" at Sarah Bouchard gallery features new ink-on-paper drawings exploring themes of artistic truth and the seductive danger of commercial success, while Frank's show at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design (ICA at MECA&D) addresses the legacy of slavery through multimedia installations.

Maine art museums overflow with summer exhibits

Maine's art museums are presenting a packed summer season with numerous exhibitions, including the collaborative show "By Design: The Worlds of Betsy James Wyeth" organized by the Colby College Museum of Art, Farnsworth Art Museum, and Brandywine Museum, which explores the design influence of Andrew Wyeth's wife. Other highlights include the largest survey of Carl Spinchorn at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art and Bates College, "Shadow of the Eagle" at the Abbe Museum examining Native American perspectives on the Revolutionary War, and retrospectives of Phyllis Graber Jensen and Spindleworks Art Center at Bates College and Bowdoin College respectively. The Center for Maine Contemporary Art features new abstract sculptures by Bianca Beck, while Colby Museum also presents "Imagining an Archipelago" focusing on art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and their diasporas.

February e-bulletin

Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) announces the reopening of its upper-level galleries (Assyrian, Shaw-Ruddock, Walker, and Markell) on February 3, 2026, following floor refinishing and reinstallation projects, with additional galleries (Bowdoin, Boyd, Rotunda) set to reopen in March. Three new exhibitions are now on view in the lower-level galleries: "Josefina Auslender: Drawing Myself Free," "Hung Liu: Happy and Gay," and "From Guild to Genius: Inventing 'The Artist' in Western Culture." The museum also highlights the acquisition of Anna Boberg's painting "The Blue Roof [Det blå taket]," a loan of an Edmonia Lewis sculpture to the Peabody Essex Museum for the exhibition "Edmonia Lewis: Said in Stone" opening February 14, 2026, and an upcoming artist talk with Samira Abbassy.

"East-Northeast: Charting Moments in Maine" Presents Four Different Exhibitions of Maine-Focused Artists in Summer 2025

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) presents "East-Northeast: Charting Moments in Maine," a series of four exhibitions running in summer 2025 that highlight artists inspired by Maine. The shows include Gordon Parks’s previously unseen 1944 photographs of rural life, John McKee’s coastal series "As Maine Goes" (first public viewing since 1966), Ann Craven’s lunar paintings from 2020 and 2024, and films by Swiss-American artist Rudy Burckhardt. The exhibitions span from June 28 to November 9, 2025, with a keynote lecture by Philip Brookman on June 28.

Maine’s Ann Craven spotlighted at Farnsworth Art Museum

The Farnsworth Art Museum in Maine will host a major exhibition titled *Ann Craven: Painted Time (2020–2024)*, showcasing approximately 30 paintings by the celebrated Maine-based artist Ann Craven. The exhibition, running from May 3, 2025, through January 4, 2026, is organized into four thematic sections—moons, trees, flowers, and birds—highlighting Craven's exploration of seriality, repetition, time, and the natural world. It will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue and a film by Fiumi Studio. The exhibition anchors the 2025 Maine in America Award, a lifetime achievement honor recognizing Craven's contributions to Maine's arts and culture, with companion presentations at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art and the Portland Museum of Art.

Celebrating the 2024–25 Academic Year Interns

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) celebrates its 2024–25 academic year intern cohort, highlighting the contributions of six student interns: Audrey Fillion, Pilar Saavedra-Weis, Karime Borrego, Neiman Mocombe, Julia Smart, and Chris Zhang. Interns worked on projects ranging from co-curating the exhibition "John McKee: As Maine Goes" to developing campus engagement surveys, leading gallery tours, and organizing community events. Emily Jacobs, Curatorial Assistant and Manager of Student Programs, authored the piece, noting the interns' diverse academic backgrounds—from art history and English to biochemistry—and their collaborative work with museum staff.

This Month the Museum Will Open "Ann Craven | Painted Time: Moons (Laboratory)"

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) will open "Ann Craven | Painted Time: Moons (Laboratory)" on May 22, 2025, featuring Ann Craven's moon paintings created between 2020 and 2024. The exhibition highlights Craven's direct observation of the moon, with each work documenting the date, time, and place of creation. The show includes a "laboratory" of lunar studies stored in labeled cardboard containers, offering insight into her process. It will be presented in three rotations curated by Anne Collins Goodyear, Jay Sanders, and Adam Weinberg, with about 20 paintings per rotation selected from over 150 compositions. The exhibition runs until August 17, 2025, and is accompanied by a digital catalogue. It coincides with two concurrent solo shows of Craven's work in Maine: at the Farnsworth Art Museum and the Portland Museum of Art.

Woolwich gallery presents solo exhibition by Argentinian artist

The Sarah Bouchard Gallery in Woolwich is hosting "La Chimera del Oro," a solo exhibition of new ink works and historical graphite drawings by 91-year-old Argentinian artist Josefina Auslender. The exhibition explores the metaphorical "chimera" of wealth and success, contrasting the allure of material gain with the rigorous, honest pursuit of artistic integrity. The new series introduces vibrant gold, yellow, and orange tones into Auslender’s traditionally dark, monochromatic palette.

Bowdoin College Museum of Art Will Present Landmark Josefina Auslender Retrospective and Hung Liu’s "Happy and Gay"

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) will present two exhibitions this winter: "Josefina Auslender: Drawing Myself Free" (December 11, 2025–May 31, 2026), the first museum retrospective of Argentine-born, Maine-based artist Josefina Auslender, featuring over 90 drawings from the 1970s to the present; and "Hung Liu: Happy and Gay" (January 22–May 31, 2026), which examines how Hung Liu reinterpreted Chinese propaganda from her childhood during the Cultural Revolution through ten paintings, prints, archival materials, and a video. Both shows explore themes of immigration, history, memory, and personal experience.

Reattributing a Portrait Bust by Edmonia Lewis

A marble portrait bust by 19th-century sculptor Edmonia Lewis, previously known only as a portrait of an unidentified woman, has been reattributed to depict social reformer Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney. The bust, held by the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, will be included in the upcoming national touring exhibition "Edmonia Lewis: Said in Stone," opening at the Peabody Essex Museum in February 2026.

Book Honors for Art Museum’s Monhegan Show Publication

A book produced by Bowdoin College faculty, highlighting artistic portrayals of ecological change on Maine's Monhegan Island, has won the 2025 Historic New England Book Prize as one of two Honor Books. The interdisciplinary project was co-created by Frank Goodyear, codirector of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, plant scientist Barry Logan, and Jennifer Pye, director of the Monhegan Museum of Art & History, where the accompanying exhibition ran through September 30, 2025. The book and exhibition merge art, science, and history to explore ecological events on the island—such as pastureland formation and abandonment, forest recovery, and land conservation—through visual art and historical artifacts.

Bowdoin College Museum of Art Announces Major Exhibition and Long-Term Loan Partnership with Wyvern Collection

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) has announced a major exhibition and long-term loan partnership with the Wyvern Collection, a prestigious London-based private collection of medieval art. The first exhibition, "Medieval Art from the Wyvern Collection: Global Networks and Creative Connections," will open this fall, featuring more than 57 artworks on long-term loan combined with objects from BCMA's own holdings. The show highlights cross-cultural connections across a vast geographic range—from Japan to Mexico, northern Europe to Africa—challenging traditional Eurocentric views of the Middle Ages.

Le Petit Salon: The Journey of an Eighteenth-Century Room from Paris to Vermont

The Middlebury College Museum of Art will reassemble Le Petit Salon, an 18th-century French neoclassical paneled room designed by Pierre-Adrien Pâris in 1776 for the duc d’Aumont’s Parisian mansion. Gifted to the college in 1959 by Susan Dwight Bliss, the room had been in storage since the 1990s. The exhibition, running from July 8 to December 6, 2025, traces the room’s journey from Paris to Manhattan—where it decorated the Bliss family’s Gilded Age mansion for fifty years—and finally to Middlebury, where it became part of Le Château, the college’s French language dormitory. The show also features Pâris’s original watercolor elevations and studies from his time in Rome and Naples, with loans from Bowdoin College, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and the Fine Arts Museum of Besançon.

Art exhibit honors Maine’s Deaf community, victims of Lewiston shootings - Portland Press Herald

An exhibition titled “Unspoken Resilience: Healing from the Lewiston Shooting Two Years In” is on view at the University of New England Art Gallery in Portland, Maine. Co-curated by Michelle Ames and Meryl Troop, the show features work by deaf artists and craftspeople alongside color photographs of Lewiston by Michael Kolster. It was created in response to the October 2023 mass shooting at Schemengees Bar & Grille in Lewiston, which killed 18 people, four of whom were deaf. Ames, co-director of deaf services at Disability Rights Maine, was frustrated by the lack of ASL interpreters in media coverage and helped organize community support. The exhibition includes pieces that explore Deaf culture, healing, and the concept of De’VIA (Deaf View/Image Art), a term defined in 1989 by deaf artists to express the Deaf experience through high contrast, intense colors, and symbolic imagery.