1. Restructuring enhances Bates’ commitment to diversity and inclusion
2. Chemistry major wins top award at international conference
3. Bates Fund flourishes in 2009-2010 fiscal year
4. Campus Construction Update
5. Museum of Art offers summer retrospective by noted painter Nicoletti
6. With Young Dancers Workshop, festival bridges gap in dance education
7. Save the date: Parents & Family Weekend Oct. 8-10
8. Bates in the News

A summer exhibition examining the career of Joseph Nicoletti, one of Maine’s foremost realist painters, opens with a lecture by the artist and reception at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, June 12, at the Bates College Museum of Art.

Joseph Nicoletti: A Retrospective runs through Sept. 25. Located in the Olin Arts Center at Bates, 75 Russell St., the museum is open to the public at no cost. The hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. For more information, please contact 207-786-6158 or this museum@bates.edu.

“Nicoletti’s images are beautiful, subtle and complex, rich with references to art history,” says museum education curator Anthony Shostak, who assembled the exhibition. “He is deeply concerned with beauty, and takes pains to make each image special.”

The 60 paintings and drawings in the exhibition come from the museum’s collection, other museums and private collections, and from Nicoletti himself. An accompanying catalog features an essay by eminent art historian Jeffrey Muller, professor of history of art and architecture at Brown University.

A lecturer in the art and visual culture department, Nicoletti has taught at Bates since 1981. The museum has shown his work previously, but this exhibition is Bates’ first retrospective dedicated to his work.

“Nicoletti is a painter’s painter,” Shostak continues. “His technical mastery is evident throughout the exhibition — with his ability to paint smoothly and seamlessly or to dig into paint films, and to harmonize subtle color shifts or create psychologically jarring compositions.

“He is equally adept at large and intimately tiny compositions, at times creating vastly deep spaces in minuscule pictures.”

Born in 1948 in Toritto, Italy, Nicoletti earned a master’s degree in fine arts from Yale University in 1972 and a bachelor’s degree from Queens College in New York.

He has exhibited internationally, and his work is in major collections including that of the Portland Museum of Art, where he participated in this year’s Objects of Wonder exhibit. He has had solo exhibitions at Chase Gallery in Boston, at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art and at the Greenhut, Barridoff and Gleason galleries in Portland.

In Maine, his numerous commissions include Percent for Art projects at the Maine State Police Crime Laboratory and at Deering High School in Portland, and the official portrait of Gov. Joseph Brennan.

Nicoletti taught at Bowdoin for eight years before coming to Bates. From 2004 to 2008, he directed the summer program of the International School of Art in Umbria, Italy. In 2008, he took part in the Maryland Institute College of Art’s prestigious Klots Artist Residency program in Rocheforte-en-Terre, France.

In 1985, he received the Hassam and Speicher Purchase Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, New York.

Maine artist Joel Babb, known for his wilderness paintings and panoramic cityscapes, speaks about the use of color at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25, in Room 104 of the Olin Arts Center at Bates College, 75 Russell St.

Titled Color Theory in Painting Practice, the lecture is open to the public at no cost and is sponsored by the Bates College Museum of Art. Babb’s work is displayed at the museum through March 27 in an exhibition called Joel M. Babb: The Process Revealed.Museum hours are 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, please call 207-786-6158.

Babb graduated with an art history degree from Princeton in 1969 and earned a master’s degree from Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts School and Tufts University. He also studied with artists George Segal and George Ortman.

Babb’s body of work includes wilderness images and photorealist historical allegories. (His depiction of the first successful organ transplant is displayed in the Countway Library at Harvard Medical School.) But he is best-known for city panoramas that depict flattened, wide-angled views of Boston and Providence.

In the 1970s, Babb built a studio in Sumner, Maine, which became his permanent residence and inspiration for his large wooded landscapes.

Babb’s work has been displayed at Vose Galleries and Gallery Naga in Boston; Sherry French Gallery, Gerold Wunderlich Gallery and the National Academy Museum in New York; and in Maine, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Portland Museum of Art and the Ogunquit Museum of American Art.

The event, which is open to the public at no cost, is sponsored by the Bates College Museum of Art. For more information, call 207-786-6158.

A member of the Bates class of 1975, Yamaguchi lives in Santa Monica, Calif. Her landscapes have been described by Art in America as a synthesis of American Modernist painting with the stylized graphics of “ukiyo-e,” a popular style of Japanese woodblock printing.

The Los Angeles Times extended that comparison to include the influence of the abstract patterns of Japanese textiles and screen paintings. Her paintings “celebrate … the ecstatic beauty of the natural world,” a Times reviewer wrote.

Yamaguchi has exhibited extensively around the world. Her paintings are housed in several collections, including those of the Nevada Museum of Art and the Long Beach Museum of Art.

Born in Okayama, Japan, in 1952, Yamaguchi studied at the Rhode Island School of Design after graduating from Bates. She earned her master’s in fine arts from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Little, winner of the 2000 Acadia Arts Achievement Award, has authored several books on art, such as Edward Hopper’s New England (Pomegranate Communications, 1993) and The Watercolors of John Singer Sargent (University of California Press, 1999)

Little also writes for regional and national publications including Art New England and Art in America. He contributed an essay to the catalog for the exhibition Bernard Langlais: Independent Spirit at the Portland Museum of Art in 2002.

At Bates, Little will focus on Langlais’ current exhibition in the context of his greater oeuvre. The exhibition Medium and Abstraction, curated by Erin Gilligan ’09, focuses on a selection of Langlais sculptures from the 1950s and ’60s that show a particular influence of the New York avant-garde. The inclusion of wooden assemblages by Louise Nevelson and portraits of Langlais imply a larger context of influence for his work, which Little will discuss.

Langlais, born in Old Town, Maine, in 1921, embarked on an art career at a young age. His early work is predominantly paintings and collages. In 1956, Langlais and his wife bought a summer cottage in Cushing, Maine. While completing renovations, Langlais began experimenting with wood, and developed his self-proclaimed “painting in wood” technique. He is most famous for whimsical animal sculptures and tableaus created with a fusion of painting and wood carving.

Also featured in the museum are the exhibitions Landscape Drawings from the Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection and Our Positive Bodies: Mapping Our Treatment, Sharing Our Choices. The Hartley exhibition showcases ink and graphite drawings by this famed artist born in Lewiston, Maine, who wished to have a memorial collection in his hometown.

Marsden is known as a pioneer of American modernist painting in the early 20th century. Our Positive Bodies originated in Nairobi, Kenya, and focuses on “body mapping,” a palliative process through which life-sized silhouette self-portraits of women affected by AIDS are used to divulge feelings and memories.

The Langlais and Hartley exhibitions close on Oct. 3, while Our Positive Bodies remains up until Dec. 11. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and closed on major holidays. Admission is free.

For more information, please call 207-786-6158 or visit the museum Web site at www.bates.edu/museum.xml.

Opening June 12 at the Bates College Museum of Art are exhibitions of work by two prominent artists with Maine connections, and a third exhibition revealing a compelling response to HIV/AIDS.

The exhibition Medium and Abstraction explores influences at work in the wood reliefs of the late, beloved Maine artist Bernard Langlais. Rarely seen images by a pioneer in American modern art are displayed in Landscape Drawings from the Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection.

Finally, a therapeutic approach to self-portraiture for women infected with the AIDS virus is the theme of the major summer exhibition Our Positive Bodies: Mapping Our Treatment, Sharing Our Choices.

The Langlais and Hartley exhibitions close on Oct. 3, and Our Positive Bodies remains up until Dec. 11. Open to the public at no cost, the museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. It is closed on major holidays. For more information, please call 207-786-6158 or visit the museum Web site. The museum is located at 75 Russell St.

Langlais is known for his vigorous explorations of the sculptural possibilities of wood, using found objects ranging from toothpicks to driftwood, and for the intimacy he established with the character of the medium, through both direct manipulation and an understanding of weathering and other random factors.

Born in Old Town in 1921, Langlais fused his Maine upbringing with ideas from the New York avant-garde to create bold abstract wood reliefs.

Bates senior Erin Gilligan ’09 curated Medium and Abstraction to focus on a select group of Langlais’ works from the 1950s and ’60s and to introduce a broader context of influences, through the inclusion of such items as wooden assemblages by Louise Nevelson and portraits of Langlais by Alex Katz.

The works come to the Bates museum courtesy of Aucocisco Galleries of Portland.

The Hartley exhibition features ink and graphite drawings covering a wide range of subjects and a time span of several decades. Hartley was born in Lewiston, and during his lifetime expressed the hope that a memorial collection be established in his hometown.

In 1951, eight years after his death, the heirs of the Hartley estate left artworks and effects to Bates College, and a subsequent gift of 99 drawings was made to the college by Hartley’s niece, Norma Berger, in 1955. It is the largest collection of the artist’s work in this medium.

The 2009 exhibit showcases selections from the latter group of works. It is the largest collection of the artist’s work in this medium. Many served as studies for some of the artist’s most important paintings.

Our Positive Bodies: Mapping Our Treatment, Sharing Our Choices originated in Nairobi, Kenya, in an effort to help HIV-positive women cope with the likelihood that they would die prematurely and leave their children behind. The exhibition focuses on “body mapping,” a process that uses the creation of life-sized, silhouette self-portraits to express the feelings, memories, treatment and identities of those likely to die of AIDS.

These celebratory portraits are designed to encourage women affected by the disease to explore their options for maximizing their well-being and to better understand how the attitudes and behavior of others affects their ability to stay healthy.

Fulton and Margaret Kornack, parents of art and visual culture major Elise Kornack ’09, admire their daughter’s work in wire and graphite on paper during the opening for the Annual Senior Exhibition in the Bates College Museum of Art.

Fourteen studio art majors from Bates College show work from their yearlong thesis projects in the annual Senior Exhibition.

The exhibition runs through May 30. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. [More]

• Opening reception: Friday, April 10, at 6 p.m.
• Bates College Museum of Art, 75 Russell St.

Fourteen studio art majors from Bates College show work from their yearlong thesis projects in the annual Senior Exhibition. The show opens with a reception at 6 p.m. Friday, April 10, in the Bates College Museum of Art, 75 Russell St.

The exhibition runs through May 30. Open to the public at no cost, the museum’s regular hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, please call 207-786-6158 or visit www.bates.edu/museum.xml.

The Senior Exhibition artists are:

[intlink id="7426" type="post"]H. Lincoln Benedict[/intlink] of Shaftsbury, Vt.;

[intlink id="7443" type="post"]Sarah Codraro[/intlink] of Hancock, Maine;

[intlink id="7466" type="post"]Hannah Davis[/intlink] of Bainbridge Island, Wa.;

[intlink id="7928" type="post"]Ryan Dean[/intlink] of Cranston, R.I.;

[intlink id="7973" type="post"]William Gardner[/intlink] of Waitsfield, Vt.;

[intlink id="8230" type="post"]Rachel Kaplan[/intlink] of Westport, Conn.;

[intlink id="8237" type="post"]Jessica Kase[/intlink] of Chappaqua, N.Y.;

[intlink id="8244" type="post"]Elise Kornack[/intlink] of Dover, Mass.;

[intlink id="8317" type="post"]Madeline McLean[/intlink] of Evergreen, Colo.;

[intlink id="8263" type="post"]Elizabeth Mitchell[/intlink] of Auburn, Maine;

[intlink id="8269" type="post"]Hwei Ling Ng[/intlink] of Selangor, Malaysia;

[intlink id="8280" type="post"]Tyler Schoen[/intlink] of Wilton, Maine;

[intlink id="8311" type="post"]Jason Tsichlis[/intlink] of Winchester, Mass.;

and [intlink id="8290" type="post"]Margot Webel[/intlink] of Locust Valley, N.Y.

As their senior thesis requirement, studio art majors at Bates create a substantial and cohesive body of work through studio practice and critical inquiry. The yearlong process is overseen by faculty and culminates in this exhibition.

The requirement allows students to develop independence and consistency. They achieve greater depth with their artwork and learn to work both critically and productively.

Since its dedication in 1986, the Bates College Museum of Art has maintained a special relationship with the college’s Department of Art and Visual Culture. Part of this is a commitment to supporting the work of Bates students through the museum’s annual Senior Exhibition. The exhibition highlights work selected from the thesis projects of graduating seniors majoring in Studio Art.

Thesis projects vary from student to student, each pursuing an individual interest. The emphasis of the program is to create a cohesive body of related works through sustained studio practice and critical inquiry. The year-long process is overseen by Art faculty, and culminates in this exhibition.