Learning about an important acquisition

We are deep into a multi-year assessment of the WCMA collection as we prepare for our new home, set to open in 2027. Recently members of the curatorial team looked at an exciting new acquisition of 20th-century prints by African American artists, acquired from the renowned collectors Jean and Robert S. Steele. We are so pleased that this conversation-which began back in 2019 when WCMA’s former curator of American Art, Horace Ballard, first visited the Steeles and made this thoughtful selection of multiples-has come to fruition and the prints are now available for us to study.

The acquisition includes work by artists like Camille Billops and Betye Saar, who had not been represented in the collection until now, as well as four prints by David C. Driskell, who did pioneering scholarship on the history of African American art, and organized some of the most important-and earliest-exhibitions of historical Black artists in the 1970s and 1980s. In the case of the two screenprints by Jacob Lawrence, Ballard selected works to build on established strengths, complementing our watercolor Radio Repairs. Similarly, WCMA has a major painting and drawings by Sam Gilliam, but we had no representation of his work as a printmaker, an important part of his practice. Faith Ringgold is an artist whose commissioned quilt on the history of Black students at Williams College is on display in the Schow Library on campus, and whose work we now have available for exhibition and teaching here at the museum.

What’s Up At WCMA?

Come chat about our new home! On Tuesday, March 25, from 4 to 5 p.m. here at WCMA, we welcome everyone to the second in a series of conversations about what we’re up to right now.

We can’t wait to hear your questions and to share our work in progress on the collection assessment and inaugural installation planning, as well as our ongoing connections with students and faculty, projects with partner institutions, and new building progress and updates. Snacks and drinks will be provided.

These programs will be held monthly through the summer on the following dates: April 29, May 27, June 24, July 22, and Aug. 26.

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Save the date! Plonsker Lecture with Stephanie Syjuco

The Plonsker Family Lecture Series in Contemporary Art, established in 1994 by Madeleine Plonsker, Harvey Plonsker ’61 and their son, Ted Plonsker ’86, examines current issues in contemporary art. This year we will host a lecture by artist Stephanie Syjuco on Thursday, April 17, at the Williams Inn. A reception will be held at 5 p.m., followed by the talk at 6 p.m.

Syjuco will discuss her dynamic practice comprising photography, sculpture, and installation, moving from handmade and craft-inspired mediums to digital editing and archive excavations. Recently, she has focused on how photography and image-based processes are implicated in the construction of racialized, exclusionary narratives of American history and citizenship. 

Born in the Philippines in 1974, Syjuco received her MFA from Stanford University and BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship Award, a Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Award, and a Tiffany Foundation Award. A long-time educator, she is an associate professor in sculpture at the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in Oakland, California.

Registration for the Plonsker Lecture is appreciated here.

Plonsker Lecture