Museum of Art

October 1 – March 27, 2027

To mark the fortieth anniversary of the opening of Bates College Museum of Art in the Olin Arts Center, the Museum’s Lower Gallery will now be devoted to annual rotations of the permanent collection. The inaugural exhibition, Rooted and Rising: Introducing the Permanent Collection traces the story of collecting at Bates in three parts focused on the origins, expansion, and future of the collection. 

The Bates College Museum of Art permanent collection originated with the bequest of the Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection in the 1950s. Building on the legacy of the Lewiston-born modernist painter Marsden Hartley, one of the Museum’s strengths remains a commitment to artists living and working in Maine, such as Katherine Bradford, Ashley Bryan, Lois Dodd, David Driskell, Chenoweth Hall, and many more. Decades of gifts have expanded the global reach of the collection to include representative works from Pre-Columbian civilizations, Edo-period Japan, Early Modern Europe, and nineteenth-century Africa. Today, it continues to grow in ways that diversify the material, conceptual, and cultural scope of the museum holdings. A brick sculpted from human hair, screenprinting on glass, and a drawing made with soil are all examples of artworks that push the boundaries of the collection while also addressing contemporary social issues and events. Taken together, Rooted and Rising reflects on the unique strengths of enduring academic collections, just as the exhibition considers new roles, directions, and stakes for museum collecting in the twenty-first century.

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 1, 4-6 PM

Curated collectively by the team and scholarly community that support Bates College Museum of Art, the exhibition is made possible with funding from the Dorothy Stiles Blankfort ‘31 Fund, the Elizabeth A. Gregory MD ‘38 Fund, and the Jane Costello Wellehan Endowment Fund.

Banner image: Ashley Bryan, Abstract Floral with Yellow Lilies, c. 1950s, Oil on canvas, Gift of Henry Isaacs and Donna Bartnoff Isaacs, 2020.6.1.