Work by Jan Cunningham is currently on view in the exhibition ‘On the Basis of Art: 150 Years of Women at Yale’ at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven on view September 10, 2021 – January 9, 2022.
On the Basis of Art: 150 Years of Women at Yale showcases and celebrates the remarkable achievements of an impressive roster of women artists who have graduated from Yale University. Presented on the occasion of two major milestones—the 50th anniversary of coeducation at Yale College and the 150th anniversary of the first women students at the University, who came to study at the Yale School of the Fine Arts when it opened in 1869—the exhibition features works drawn entirely from the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery that span a variety of media, such as paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, photography, and video.
The title of the exhibition references the phrase used in the landmark 1972 US federal law Title IX – which declared that no one could be discriminated against “on the basis of sex” in any education program receiving federal financial assistance, and which forced the School of Art to hire full-time female faculty beginning that year. Amid the rise of feminist movements – from women’s suffrage at the turn of the 20th century, to the ERA movement of the mid-20th century, to the #MeToo movement of today – this exhibition asserts the crucial role that women have played in pushing creative boundaries at Yale, and in the art world at large.
The Gallery is open Friday 5 pm – 8 pm, and Saturday and Sunday 10 am – 6 pm. You may reserve your ticket for the day: https://artgallery.yale.edu/hours-and-directions.
Pictured above: Jan Cunningham, Via Flavia Gioia, Priano, Italy 11 November 2012. On view in On the Basis of Art: 150 Years of Women at Yale.
Visitors to the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art are greeted in a lobby richly decorated with golden oak paneling and cork floors. They may not notice that the ornamentation continues above, with a ceiling featuring beautiful plaster work. The design was suggested by Charles J. Watson of the Chicago interior decorating firm Watson and Walton, created by Frederick Mottas, and executed by the French-American master craftsman Léon Herman. It features low relief depictions of flora, fauna, and celestial bodies. In honor of this enchanting adornment, and in a continuation of a series of exhibitions that celebrate how artists are breathing new life into techniques and forms found in centuries-old art and design, the Museum presents this exhibition of works in plaster by contemporary artists Amy Kann, Jedediah Morfit, and Mark Webber. Their works show the effectiveness of utilizing the medium in traditional, conceptual, and abstract forms.
