Tag: Akron
Art Adventures Mad Libs
Creatively fill in the list on the next page with whatever words you like, then transfer your list to the blanks in the story. Finally, read the story from start to finish and enjoy your silly creation!
Ralph Albert Blakelock
In this moody night scene, or “nocturne,” Ralph Albert Blakelock captured the solitude and stillness of night, rendered through hazy shades of green, blue, and black. Blakelock was known for his nocturnes, which his biographer characterized as representing “that strange, wonderful moment when night is about to assume full sway, when the light in the western sky lingers lovingly, glowingly, for a space, and the trees trace themselves in giant patterns of lace against the light.” These scenes illustrate Blakelock’s subjective responses to nature and
Ansel Adams
When Ansel Adams saw this particular moonrise, he sprung into action. He grabbed his camera, jumped on top of his car and, when he couldn’t find his handheld light meter, calculated the necessary exposure time in his head. Before he could take a second shot, the twilight was gone. Adams followed up on his speedy camerawork with painstaking, deliberate printing—trained as a pianist, he compared negatives to sheet music and prints to performances. He darkened the picture’s low tones to make the sky an inky
Virtual Tour
Totally Rad: Bold Color in the 1980s By Jeff Katzin, Curatorial Fellow This exhibition about the vibrant hues of the 1980s started with a simple question: “What’s that?” This is what I asked Steph Petcavage (the Museum’s collections manager) and Seema Rao (our deputy director) as the three of us walked past a spindly, multicolored, and unmistakably ‘80s-looking sculpture in our art storage area. I’d actually been meaning to ask about the piece ever since I’d noticed it a few weeks earlier—even in a big
George Segal
A girl sitting against a wall? Very normal. But what if her world is totally still, totally white, and ends abruptly in the middle of a gallery? Very unusual. In making his sculptures, George Segal thrived on this mix of everyday familiarity and unexpected strangeness. Segal used living models to create his sculptures. He wrapped them in plaster-soaked bandages and let the materials harden. He then cut the plaster away from the models’ bodies and reassembled the hollow forms. The result: Segal’s white figures seem
Virtual Tour
Totally Radical: Art and Politics in the 1980s By Jeff Katzin, Curatorial Fellow When I started to pull together a list of artworks from the Akron Art Museum’s permanent collection for a show about art and American politics in the 1980s, I was amazed at what I found. A wide variety of our objects are directly connected to some of the decade’s biggest issues—the AIDS crisis, the intensifying feminist movement, ongoing calls for racial justice, struggles between corporations and labor unions, environmental preservation, and the
Virginia W. Gore
A mustachioed man enters this scene from a shadowy door in the background. A puzzled look comes across his face as he realizes he is the only man in the room. The man is Raphael Gleitsmann, one of Akron’s most beloved artists. Gleitsmann is shown here in a drawing by his close friend and fellow artist Virginia W. Gore. Through quick linework and sketchy washes of ink, Gore suggests an environment of commotion in Gleitsmann’s studio, with the painter looking on helplessly as the women
Lunchtime 5: Get Art
Explore InterPlay Akron What is Interactive Art? Hear about a new interactive augmented reality experience from the Akron Art Museum and learn how all art can be interactive.
Making Your Mark
Realism is often a sticking point for viewers. “My kid can do that” is a refrain heard in many galleries. Working artists usually have a well-honed ability to render life realistically, but some of them choose to diverge from that representational approach. Seemingly simple works, bare squiggles on paper, require incredible control of a brush or careful cajoling of a monoprint plate. The new exhibition Making Your Mark offers a panoply of fine craftsmanship. Included are works by nine regional artists, individuals employing their craft
Morning Train
As a prominent participant in the Regionalist movement, Thomas Hart Benson portrayed scenes of rural America in a manner that appears visually stylized yet reflective of everyday reality. background. Her bent pose is unusual and it is unclear why she has her hands clasped behind her head. Is she injured? Is she trying to take off her dress?
