Yale Bulletin
and Calendar

SEPTEMBER 2005|SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT



A view of the Yale Center for British Art's fourth-floor galleries. The center houses the largest collection of British art outside the United Kingdom.



Museums & Galleries

Collection of Musical Instruments
15 Hillhouse Ave.
Info.: (203) 432-0822 or www.yale.edu/musicalinstruments

The Collection of Musical Instruments was founded in 1900 when Morris Steinert, a local piano entrepreneur, donated 83 instruments from his personal collection of keyboards and strings to Yale. Now comprising nearly 1,000 objects, the collection includes examples of keyboard, string, wind and percussion instruments from antiquity to the present. The history, design and acoustics of musical instruments are conveyed through special exhibits, lecture-demonstrations, gallery talks and concerts on restored examples from the museum's holdings.

The collection offers an annual concert series, with performances on Sunday afternoons at 3 p.m. The dates and performers for this year's concerts are: Oct. 9 -- Richard Lalli, baritone, and Ilya Polataev, piano, performing works by 19th- and 20th-century French composers; Nov. 6 -- the wind ensemble Piffaro will perform works by medieval and Renaissance composers; Dec. 4 -- Richard Rephann, harpsichord, will perform works by 17th- and 18th-century French composers; Feb. 26 -- Richard Savino, chittarone and guitar, will perform works by 17th-century Italian composers; and April 23 -- William Porter, harpsichord, will perform works by 17th- and 18th-century German composers. For tickets and concert information, call (203) 432-0825.

Special events for the year include two performances featuring the Yukimi Kambe Viol Consort on the following dates: March 26 at 8 p.m. -- works for viola da gama consort by traditional and contemporary composers; March 27 -- (time and venue to be announced) "New Sounds from Old Instruments," a performance in collaboration with "SCRIPTUM," an exhibit of Japanese contemporary art prints. These presentations are made possible, in part, by support from The Japan Foundation Performing Arts JAPAN program. For tickets and information, call (203) 432-0825.

The collection is free and open to the public. Hours are 1-4 p.m., Tuesday-Thursday. The collection is closed during University recesses.


School of Architecture Gallery
180 York St., second floor
Info.: (203) 432-2288 or www.architecture.yale.edu

The second-floor gallery at the School of Architecture features exhibitions throughout the year. The first fall exhibition, "Ant Farm 1968-1978," is a multimedia tribute to Ant Farm, an iconoclastic arts group that exemplified the decade between 1968 and 1978. Ant Farm was a loosely defined collaborative of architects, performance and installation artists, designers, sculptors and video-makers who turned many of the most recognizable symbols of American culture on their head. The exhibit will run through Nov. 4.

A second fall exhibition, "Transcending Type," focuses on the U.S. Pavilion of the ninth International Venice Architecture Biennale in 2004. It will open Nov. 14 and run through Feb. 3.

Spring exhibitions include "Prairie Skyscraper: Frank Lloyd Wright's Price Tower," showcasing the architect's only skyscraper (on view Feb. 13-May 5) and a display of projects completed in the academic year by students of the School of Architecture (May 19-July 28).

Gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.


School of Art Gallery
Holcombe T. Green Jr. Hall
1156 Chapel St.
Info.: (203) 432-2605 from 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

The Yale School of Art Gallery, endowed by the Cordelia Corporation, offers a 12-month program of group shows featuring work by Master of Fine Arts and undergraduate students in the Departments of Painting/Printmaking, Graphic Design, Sculpture and Photography, as well as special faculty and alumni exhibitions. The gallery is open to the public free of charge 10 a.m.-6 p.m. weekdays and on certain weekends.

In the fall semester, a main-floor gallery room will be devoted exclusively to work by Yale College undergraduates and Yale art majors. During the summer, the gallery focuses on work by students in New Haven public school programs, participating artists in the Arts & Ideas New Haven Festival, and students taking Yale Summer Programs courses. Notice of exhibitions, openings and hours for exhibits will appear in future issues of the Yale Bulletin & Calendar.


Yale Center for British Art
1080 Chapel St.
Info.: (203) 432-2800, (203) 432-9628 (fax) or www.yale.edu/ycba

The Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) houses the largest and most comprehensive collection of British art outside the United Kingdom. Opened to the public in 1977, the center is the final building designed by the internationally acclaimed American architect Louis I. Kahn. Its foundation is the gift of paintings, drawings, prints, rare books, manuscripts and sculpture presented to Yale by Paul Mellon (Yale Class of 1929).

The collection explores the development of British art, life and thought from the Elizabethan period onward. The center offers a year-round schedule of exhibitions and programs, including films, concerts, lectures, tours and special events. It also provides numerous opportunities for scholarly research, including the Yale-in-London Program and residential fellowships. Academic resources of the center include the Reference Library and Photo Archive, Conservation Laboratory and Study Room for examining prints, drawings, rare books and manuscripts from the permanent collection. An affiliated institution in London, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, awards research grants, publishes academic titles and offers facilities to Yale students studying British art and culture.

Upcoming exhibitions at the center include: "The Worlds of Francis Wheatley" (Aug. 31-Dec. 31); "Sensation and Sensibility: Viewing Gainsborough's 'Cottage Door'" (Oct. 6-Dec. 31); "London: John Virtue" (Feb. 2-April 23, 2006); "Mr. Whatman's Mill: Papermaking and the Art of Watercolor in Eighteenth-Century Britain" (Feb. 22-June 4, 2006); "English Silver at the Court of the Tsars" (May 25-Sept. 10, 2006); "Searching for Shakespeare" (June 23-Sept. 17, 2006); and "Canaletto in England: A Venetian Artist Abroad, 1746-1755" (Oct. 19-Dec. 31, 2006).

The Museum Shop offers a range of books and gift items for adults and children from the United Kingdom.

Admission is free. Hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Sunday, noon-5 p.m. Between mid-September and mid-November, the Yale Center for British Art is open until 7 p.m. on Wednesdays. The center is open until 8 p.m. on Thursdays in December.


Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History
170 Whitney Ave.
Info.: (203) 432-5050 or www.peabody.yale.edu

Highlighting the Peabody Museum of Natural History's fall offerings is the opening on Sept. 10 of "Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas." Back from its two-year national tour, the exhibition sheds light on the origins and uses of this famous archaeological site rediscovered in 1911 by Yale's Hiram Bingham III. Visitors will travel back 500 years as they walk along a replica of an ancient Inca road, take an interactive tour of the Inca palace complex and inspect an Inca burial chamber.

The Peabody's renowned permanent collections comprise more than 11 million objects ranging from minute marine organisms to telescopes, ancient Egyptian mummies and giant dinosaur bones. The Vertebrate Paleontology collection, begun by O.C. Marsh, is one of the most important collections of the museum and the third largest in the nation. It contains the original specimens of such familiar dinosaurs as Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus and Triceratops, all on public display. The most famous dinosaur painting in the world, Rudolph Zallinger's "The Age of Reptiles" mural, spans 108 feet and documents 300 million years of earth history.

Eleven nature dioramas represent North American animal habitats as diverse as the Arctic tundra and Sonoran Desert, and capture the natural beauty of respective sites. The Shoreline diorama is considered one of the outstanding achievements in the field of diorama art. Other popular exhibits feature birds, meteorites, gems and minerals. Fossils in the Hall of Mammalian Evolution include a giant mastodon and a sabre-toothed cat from the LaBrea Tar Pit. The Discovery Room is a hands-on center for learning where children can experience the natural world firsthand in an intimate setting.

Exhibits providing insights into the cultures, beliefs and daily lives of peoples from around the world, past and present, include The Hall of Native American Cultures and "Daily Life in Ancient Egypt." "Fossil Fragments: The Riddle of Human Origin" traces the evolution of the human species. Annual festivals include "Indigenous Peoples" weekend in October; a two-day Martin Luther King Jr. celebration; "Dinosaur Days"; "Paleo-Knowledge Bowl"; and "Fiesta Latina."

"Dinsaurs to Egypt Highlights Tours" are free with museum admission. The 40-minute tours are offered in English every Saturday and Sunday at 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m., and in Spanish the first Saturday of each month at 2:30 p.m.

The museum, which also has a museum store offering a wide variety of decorative objects, toys, books, jewelry and other items, is open Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Sunday, noon-5 p.m. Admission is $7 for adults, $6 for seniors 65 and over, and $5 for children ages 3-18 and all students with I.D. The museum is free every Thursday 2-5 p.m.


Yale University Art Gallery
1111 Chapel St. (at High Street)
Info.: (203) 432-0600 or http://artgallery.yale.edu

Founded in 1832 when patriot-artist John Trumbull donated to Yale College more than 100 of his paintings, the Yale University Art Gallery is the oldest college art museum in the United States. Today, the gallery's encyclopedic collections number more than 185,000 objects ranging in date from ancient times to the present day. These holdings comprise a world-renowned collection of American paintings and decorative arts; collections of Greek and Roman art, including the artifacts excavated at the ancient Roman city of Dura-Europos; the Jarves, Griggs and Rabinowitz collections of early Italian paintings; European, Asian and African art from diverse cultures, including the recently acquired Charles B. Benenson Collection of African Art; art of the ancient Americas; the Société Anonyme Collection of early 20th-century European and American art; and Impressionist, modern and contemporary works.

The gallery is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the opening of its Louis I. Kahn building with a complete restoration, reopening in late 2006. During this time, programming remains active, with permanent-collection exhibitions in the gallery's 1928 Gothic-style building, designed by Egerton Swartwout. Exhibitions during this academic year as follows:

"Historical Fictions: Edward Lamson Henry's Paintings of Past and Present." Widely appreciated in his time as an artful storyteller, Edward Lamson Henry (1841-1919) meticulously documented places and events, particularly those associated with early America and the Civil War. The exhibition explores the artist's fascination with "historical fictions" and how these romanticized visions of the past helped create a unified national identity in the discordant decades after the Civil War. On view on the third floor through Dec. 30.

"American Paintings, Sculpture and Decorative Arts." The history of the Yale University Art Gallery's collection of American paintings, sculpture and decorative arts spans nearly two-and-a-half centuries. A comprehensive selection of highlights from the collection is on view, ranging from one of the earliest American paintings -- the anonymous 1670 portrait of John Davenport, first minister to the New Haven Colony -- through mid-20th-century masterpieces by artists such as Edward Hopper and Thomas Hart Benton, and including as well examples of furniture, turned wood, glass, pewter and other metals, ceramics and textiles. On view on the third floor through June 2006.

Featured in the American Galleries is "Private Faces of Public People: 1750-1900," revealing the meanings behind private keepsakes depicting people in the public realm. It will be on view through 2006 on the third floor.

During the restoration of the Louis I. Kahn building, highlights from the collections of African art, the art of the ancient Americas, and Asian, early European, and modern and contemporary are on view in "Selections from the Permanent Collection." Ranging in date from the Neolithic Era to the Present day, the works in this exhibition range from Vincent van Gogh's pilgrimage piece "The Night Café" (1888) to Frans Hals' "De Heer Bodolphe" and "Mevrouw Bodolphe" (both 1643) to a D'mba mask from the renowned Charles B. Benenson Collection of African Art. This exhibition is on view on the first floor through June 2006.

A selection of more than 120 sculptures from the collections of ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Near Eastern, early European and Asian art is on view in the Sculpture Hall. The works reveal the social and cultural ideals that shaped these diverse civilizations. New acquisitions and loans not previously shown at Yale are included.

"American Jewelry from the Yale University Art Gallery" features mourning rings, miniatures, knee buckles, bracelets and other notable and unusual selections from the gallery's collections of gold, silver and costume jewelry -- many on public view for the first time. From a necklace of gold beads created by a colonial goldsmith to insigna from the Society of the Cincinnati and the Masons, and from Bakelite bracelets from the 1930s to studio jewelry from some of the country's finest contemporary artisans, this exhibition reveals how Americans have adorned and accessorized themselves for over 200 years.

The gallery is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (Thursdays until 8 p.m. from September through June); and Sunday, 1-6 p.m.


Contents

Sources of Information

Museums & Galleries

Film, Music & Radio

Theater

Libraries

Health Services & Personal Counseling

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Parking & Transportation

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