From Foundation to Actualization: Sketches and their Counterparts

An exhibition by Olivia Munnelly ’20 and Lila Reid ’20

Throughout art history, artists have developed their artworks in different ways. The works selected for this exhibition illustrate exactly that: the thought process of the artist. By displaying sketches and preliminary studies beside their final counterparts, we gain insight to the mind of the artist and how they created their works over time. 

This exhibition focuses on the works of American artists in the period of 1900-1950, specifically Jefferson David Chalfant, Charles Burchfield, Jacob Getlar Smith, William C. Palmer, and Richard Lippold. These artists work across a variety of media, and all contribute to the evolution of American Modernism. The relationship between the sketches and preliminary studies and their counterparts reveals how the process of an artist can remain the same, despite the creation of varying levels of abstraction.

This exhibition was made possible with help from the Munson Williams Proctor Institute, The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, and the Art History Department at Hamilton College. 

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