Current Exhibitions
IN/BETWEEN: Senior Studio Art Majors 2024
April 20 – May 18, 2024
Melvin Henderson-Rubio Gallery
Each spring, the Hallie Ford Museum of Art features the work of senior studio art majors at Willamette University. The exhibition represents the culmination of their four years at Willamette.
Related EventsAlexandra Opie: What Remains
April 20 – May 18, 2024
Atrium Gallery
This year’s featured faculty member is Alexandra Opie, a professor of photography and electronic media and co-chair of the art department in the Willamette University Art Department.
Dalí’s Dialogues
April 20 – May 18, 2024
The Maribeth Collins Lobby
In Dalí’s Dialogues, senior art history major Matthew Mahoney explores works drawn from several of Salvador Dalí’s portfolios that are part of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art’s permanent collection.
Upcoming Exhibitions
Gary Westford: Lifeline (phases of the moon)
May 4 – November 16, 2024
Study Gallery
Gary Westford is a Salem narrative painter and conceptual artist who explores environmental, social justice, and amendment rights issues in his work.
Image GalleryRelated EventsAbout the ArtistThe Artist's Eye: Selections from the Gary Westford Collection
May 4 – November 16, 2024
Print Study Gallery
Over the years, Salem artist and collector Gary Westford has donated numerous works of art to the permanent collection of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art. The exhibition also includes a number of promised gifts, including works by Louis Bunce, Carl Hall, Gregory Grenon, and Carol Hausser.
Image GalleryRelated EventsAbout the Collector Gary WestfordDennis Evans: Apocrypha
June 11 – August 31, 2024
Melvin Henderson-Rubio Gallery
Dennis Evans: Apocrypha explores the myriad artistic accomplishments of Seattle mixed-media and performance artist Dennis Evans (American, born 1946). The exhibition chronicles the artist’s career over the past fifty years, from his early performances and installations of the 1970s and ’80s to his autonomous works and collaborations with his wife, glass artist Nancy Mee, in the 1990s and 2000s.
Permanent Exhibitions
Northwest Perspectives: Selections from the Permanent Collection
On permanent view
Carl Hall Gallery
Visitors can explore new ideas of landscape, narrative, identity, form and process through a variety of paintings, sculptures and mixed media that highlight both visual and conceptual relationships between historic and contemporary art.
The gallery provides the museum with an opportunity to share many previously unviewed works that capture the rich and varied expressions that have taken place during the past century, which has been marked by rapid changes in the art world, the Northwest and its landscape.
Ancestral Dialogues: Conversations in Native American Art
On permanent view
The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Gallery
Featuring works from the museum’s permanent collection of American Indian art, this exhibition is organized around the concept of dialogue. The focus is on native art history as a dynamic, rich legacy from which contemporary arts grow today. Art works are placed in conversation, juxtaposed so that the work of many generations is in visual dialogue across time, telling stories of creation, transformation, and renewal. Historic baskets, bags, regalia, and lithics are displayed side by side with contemporary art works by artists such as Rick Bartow, James Lavadour, Bud Lane, Lillian Pitt, Pat Courtney Gold, and Joe Feddersen among many others.
Across Continents, Through Time
On permanent view
Mark and Janeth Sponenburgh Gallery
This exhibition features selections from the museum’s European, Asian, and American Collections, which span 4,500 years and encompass four continents: Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. On view are paintings, ceramics, prints, sculptures, textiles, architectural fragments, archaeological artifacts, Orthodox icons and decorative arts that will deepen visitors’ appreciation for artworks of aesthetic quality and expressive significance from cultural traditions worldwide.
Many of the works of art displayed in this gallery were generously donated to Willamette University in 1990 by Mark and Janeth Sponenburgh, and formed the basis for the creation of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art.
Print Study Center
On permanent view
Print Study Center
The museum’s collections of works on paper – prints, drawings, paintings on paper, and photographs – are stored, studied and displayed in the Print Study Center. The collection includes many contemporary American works, particularly by artists of the Pacific Northwest. Other highlights include etchings by the 17th-century Dutch artist Anthonie Waterloo, and 19th-century American expatriate artist James Abbott McNeil Whistler, as well as an early pictorial photograph by Edward Steichen. Temporary exhibitions in the Print Study Center are designed to highlight works in the permanent collection, and complement and enhance the special exhibitions on view.
Point of View
On permanent view
Landing to the second floor
In this ongoing exhibition series, we invite members of the Willamette community to share their experience or interpretation of a work of art from the perspective of their area of expertise, study, or research. Each semester we will offer a new work, and a new "point of view."