Jacob Lawrence: Aesop's Fables

August 3 – October 27, 2013

Study Gallery and Print Study Center

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) is widely regarded as one of the most important African American artists of the 20th century for his paintings and prints that often portrayed African American life, culture, and history. This exhibition features 23 original drawings that Lawrence created for the 1970 Simon and Schuster publication of Aesop's Fables.

David Roberts: Travels in the Holy Land

August 10 – December 22, 2013

Maribeth Collins Lobby

David Roberts (1796-1864) was a Scottish painter who traveled to the Near East in the late 1830s and produced a series of bound, hand-colored lithographs of Egypt and the Holy Land in the 1840s from sketches made during his travels. Lauded for their artistic merit as well as their scholarly contributions, these folios provided Europeans, and eventually Americans, with their first views of the exotic Orient, changing forever their vision of Egypt and the Middle East. This small exhibition features several of Roberts’ prints.  

Breath of Heaven, Breath of Earth: Ancient Near Eastern Art from American Collections

August 31 – December 22, 2013

Melvin Henderson-Rubio Gallery

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University is pleased to present “Breath of Heaven, Breath of Earth: Ancient Near Eastern Art from American Collections.” This major exhibition will feature 64 ancient artworks that date from approximately 6000 BCE to 500 BCE and encompass the geographic regions of Mesopotamia, Syria and the Levant, Anatolia and Iran.

Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts Biennial

November 9, 2013 – February 2, 2014

Study Gallery and Print Study Center

The Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts Biennial will feature a selection of contemporary prints created at the Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts on the Umatilla Reservation in northeastern Oregon during the past two years. Organized by Willamette University Professor Rebecca Dobkins and Crow’s Shadow Master Printer Frank Janzen, the exhibition will open November 9, 2013 and continue through February 2, 2014, in the Study Gallery and Print Study Center.

Whiting Tennis: My Side of the Mountain

January 18 – March 23, 2014

Melvin Henderson-Rubio Gallery

On The Edge: Pacific Northwest Art from the Permanent Collection

On permanent view

Carl Hall Gallery

The exhibition begins with the story Oregon’s pioneers of modernism and moves through the present day. On view are works created in the 1930s by artists such as C.S. Price, Charles Heaney, Amanda Synder and Constance Fowler, Willamette Valley and Central Coast artists Carl Hall, Nelson Sandgren and Ruth Dennis Grover, along with well-known mid-century Oregon modernists such as Michele Russo, George Johanson, Louis Bunce, Lucinda Parker, Lee Kelly and Manuel Izquierdo. The gallery also includes a rotating selection of works by contemporary artists from Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.

This gallery is named for Carl Hall (1922-1996), who taught at Willamette University for nearly 40 years and painted a luminous record of his response to the region.

View the Northwest Collection

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.