Exhibitions Archive - Palmer Museum of Art

Past Exhibitions

Missed a recent show? Check out our past special exhibitions.

Benjamin West (American, 1738–1820), Venus and Adonis (Bath of Venus), c. 1799, oil on canvas, 28 1/8 x 39 3/8 inches. Gift of John Driscoll, 2001.31 Violet Oakley (American, 1874–1961), Venus Rising from the Sea, 1940, oil on canvas, 40 ¼ x 30 ¼ inches. Gift of Bette and Arnold Hoffman, 2017.114

Conversations across the Collection

January 7-May 14, 2023

Snowiss Galleries, First Floor

The new Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State. View from the Overlook Pavilion in the Arboretum. Architect: Allied Works. Rendering: Courtesy of MIR.

Designed for the Future: The New Palmer Museum of Art at the Arboretum

October 15-May 14, 2023

Special Exhibitions Gallery, First Floor

Eleanor Antin (American, b. 1935), Going Home from Roman Allegories, 2004, chromogenic print, 48-1/2 x 102-3/4 x 2 inches. Purchased with funds provided by the Donald W. Hamer Endowment for Art Acquisitions and Exhibitions, 2006.29. © Eleanor Antin

Looking at Who We Are: The Palmer at Fifty

September 23-December 22, 2022

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor

Pancrace Bessa (French, 1772–1846), Hyacinthus Orientalis, 1810–1826, watercolor on white vellum, 7 3/8 x 4 9/16 inches. Presented in memory of James Rea Maxwell Jr., Class of 1921, 74.4

The Art of Remembering: A Selection of Gifts

August 26-December 22, 2022

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor

HOME/STUDIO: 2022 Penn State School of Visual Arts Faculty Show

May 28-August 28, 2022

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor

Martin Lewis (American, 1881–1962), Little Penthouse, 1931

Staff Picks: A Selection of Palmer Favorites

June 3-September 18, 2022

Special Exhibitions Gallery, First Floor

William P. Hanson (American, 1928–2017), Grasses, Branches, and Shore, Maine, 1963/1969, watercolor, pencil, and crayon, 14 x 10 inches. Gift of Professor Cortland Eyer, 88.7, AS B056

Those Who Taught: Selected Works by Former Faculty

May 20-August 14, 2022

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor

Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889–1975), Shallow Creek, 1938–39, oil and Egg tempera on canvas mounted on board, 36 x 25 inches. Bequest of James R. and Barbara R. Palmer, 2019.31. © 2021 T.H. and R.P. Benton Trusts / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

An American Place: Selections from the James and Barbara Palmer Collection

January 29-May 1, 2022

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor

Lee Krasner (American, 1908–1984), Composition, 1949, oil on canvas, 38-1/16 x 27-13/16 inches, Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of the Aaron E. Norman Fund, Inc., 1959, 1959-31-1 © Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

A Way Through: Abstract Art of the 1940s

January 15-May 15, 2022

Special Exhibitions Gallery, First Floor

Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528), Melencolia I, 1514, engraving, 9-7/16 × 7-5/16 inches. Anonymous loan

Printmaking in the Age of Dürer

January 18-May 8, 2022

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor

Jun Kaneko (Japanese, b. 1942), Untitled, Tanuki, 2014

Global Asias: Contemporary Asian and Asian American Art from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

August 28-December 12, 2021

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor

Colin Campbell Cooper (American, 1856–1937), The Grand Place, Antwerp, 1908

Place to Place: Recent Gifts of American Drawings and Watercolors, 1900-1950

September 14-December 12, 2021

Special Exhibitions Gallery, First Floor

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (Japanese, 1798-1861), Kuwana: Legend of the Sailor Tokuzo, c. 1844-45, woodblock print, 14-5/8 x 10-1/4 inches, oban format. Gift of Dr. William E. Harkins, 75.84

Ukiyo-e: Images from the Floating World, Japanese Woodblock Prints from the Permanent Collection

August 28-December 5, 2021

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor

George Loftus Noyes (American, 1865-1954), Sunlit Road, c. 1910

Summer Light: American Impressionist Paintings from the Thomas Clark Collection

May 8-August 29, 2021

Permanent Collection

Warren Rohrer, Fields: Amish I, 1974, oil on linen, 60 x 60 inches, Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley. Gift of Dr. Charles McCrae, 1977 (1977.37)

Field Language: The Painting and Poetry of Warren and Jane Rohrer

February 10-April 25, 2021

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor

Archibald Dick after Charles Cousen after William Henry Bartlett, View on the Susquehanna (Above Owego), 1846, engraving and etching on steel, with hand coloring, 6 1/2 x 10 1/4 inches. From the January 1846 issue of The Ladies’ Repository. Partial gift and purchase from John C. O’Connor and Ralph M. Yeager, 86.631

Pennsylvania Scenery: Early Landscape Prints from the Tavern Collection

January 31-May 1, 2021

Special Exhibitions Gallery, First Floor

Alma Thomas, Hydrangeas Spring Song, 1976, acrylic on canvas, 78 x 48 inches. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 125th Anniversary Acquisition. Purchased with funds contributed by Mr. and Mrs. Julius Rosenwald II in honor of René and Sarah Carr d’Harnoncourt, The Judith Rothschild Foundation, and with other funds being raised in honor of the 125th Anniversary of the Museum and in celebration of African American art, 2002-20-1.

Mark Makers: The Language of Abstraction

January 31-May 9, 2021

Lucille Corcos, Everybody’s Downtown, 1948, tempera on board, 14 ½ x 11 1/8 inches. Collection of David and Susan Werner

The Wit and Whimsy of Lucille Corcos

February 8-May 9, 2021

Special Exhibitions Gallery, First Floor

African Brilliance: A Diplomat’s Sixty Years of Collecting

February 8-May 24, 2020

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor

John William Hill, Under the Falls, Niagara, c. 1870, watercolor on paper, 29 x 21½ inches. Palmer Museum of Art, The John Driscoll American Drawings Collection, 2018.153

Drawing on a Legacy: Highlights from the John Driscoll American Drawings Collection

January 21-June 7, 2020

Special Exhibitions Gallery, First Floor

Jerry Uelsmann, Apocalypse II, 1967, gelatin silver print, 10½ x 13 5/16 inches. Palmer Museum of Art, Museum purchase, 2011.98. © Jerry Uelsmann

Grounded: Environments in Flux

January 21-May 31, 2020

Félix Buhot, Convoi Funèbre au Boulevard de Clichy (Funeral Procession on the Boulevard de Clichy), 1887, etching, drypoint, aquatint, roulette, soft ground, and lift ground over heliogravure, second state of three, 14 1/8 x 19 inches. Private collection

Fantasy and Reality: The World According to Félix Buhot

September 29-December 15, 2019

Special Exhibitions Gallery, First Floor

Bauhaus Transfers: Albers / Rauschenberg

September 3-December 15, 2019

Pincus Gallery, Second Floor

Augusta Savage, Gamin, c. 1930, painted plaster, 9¼ x 6 x 4 inches. The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, Jacksonville, Florida. Purchased with funds from the Morton R. Hirschberg Bequest, AP.2013.1.1

Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman

August 24-December 8, 2019

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor

John Biggers, Dancers of the Ghana Harvest Festival, 1957, conté crayon, 39¼ x 29 5/8 inches. Palmer Museum of Art, Purchased in memory of Charles V. Hallman (Class of 1928) with funds provided by a bequest from Mabel P. Hansen, 99.44. © John T. Biggers Estate / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY, Estate Represented by Michael Rosenfeld Gallery

The Web of Life: John Biggers and the Power of Pedagogy

August 20-December 15, 2019

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor

Ellison Hoover, George C. Miller, Lithographer, lithograph, 15 5/8 x 11½ inches. Palmer Museum of Art, Museum purchase, 2018.11

George Miller and American Lithography

June 18-September 15, 2019

Special Exhibitions Gallery, First Floor

Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Carrizo y tele (Reed and Television), c. 1976, printed 1977, gelatin silver print, 6 13/16 x 9 3/16 inches. Palmer Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. H. S. Arukian, 80.62.1

Myth Meets Modernism: The Manuel Álvarez Bravo Portfolio

June 11-August 4, 2019

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor

Edward Weston, Rosa Covarrubias, 1926, gelatin silver print, 9 x 63/4 inches. Collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg. © 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents

Under the Mexican Sky: A Revolution in Modern Photography

June 1-July 28, 2019

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor

John Sloan, Red Kimono on the Roof, 1912, oil on canvas, 24 x 20 inches. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, James E. Roberts Fund, 54.55

From the Rooftops: John Sloan and the Art of a New Urban Space

February 3-May 12, 2019

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor

Roger Shimomura, Kansas Samurai, 2004, lithograph, 44¾ x 31 inches. Palmer Museum of Art, Purchased with funds provided by the Sidney and Helen S. Friedman Endowment, 2018.12, © Roger Shimomura

Amazing Stories: Recent Acquisitions

January 12-May 26, 2019

Special Exhibitions Gallery, First Floor

Robert Reed, Le Relais Du Postillon, Florence Room 2012—Untitled #122, 2012, collage with ink, acrylic, and metal fasteners, 6 3/8 x 4 7/8 inches. Courtesy of the artist’s estate

Subjective Spaces: Drawings and Collages by Robert Reed

January 5-May 19, 2019

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor