“Humanizing Landscapes: Geography, Culture and the Magoon Collection” at Vassar College from October 5 – December 20, 2000

Come on a spectacular tour from the Old World to the New, from the Rhine River Valley and Loch Lomond to sites memorialized by artists of the Hudson River School. Looking through the interpretive lenses of cultural geography and art history, "Humanizing Landscapes: Geography, Culture, and the Magoon Collection" casts new light upon the art collection acquired by Matthew Vassar in 1864 from Elias Magoon, an early college trustee.

The exhibit opens at Vassar's Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center on Thursday, October 5, and runs through Wednesday, December 20. There will be an opening reception in the gallery on Friday, October 6, at 6 p.m.

Magoon's collection of over 4,000 works by contemporary English and American artists, including such major Hudson River School painters as Frederic Edwin Church, Sanford Robinson Gifford and Asher B. Durand, immediately became an integral part of education at Vassar College. The 70 works in this exhibition include oil paintings, watercolors, prints, and drawings by 55 artists. Of special regional interest are rarely seen period maps and images of sites in the Hudson River Valley, including Matthew Vassar's estate "Springside," designed by Andrew Jackson Downing in the 1850s.

The last in a series of three multidisciplinary exhibitions funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, "Humanizing Landscapes" is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring essays by curators David Lowenthal (Geography, University College, London), Karen Lucic (Art History, Vassar College), and Harvey Flad (Geography and American Culture, Vassar College).

In conjunction with the exhibition, a free public symposium, from Friday, October 27, through Saturday, October 28, will feature talks by Lowenthal, art historian Eleanor Jones Harvey, landscape architect Anne Whiston Spirn, and the landscape photography team of Virginia Beahan and Laura McPhee. Landscape photographs by Spirn and by Beahan & McPhee will be on view in the Loeb from mid-October to mid-November.

To schedule group tours of the exhibition or arrange for group attendance at the

symposium, call Monica Church, Coordinator of Education and Public Programs, at (845) 437-7745.

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is free and the art center is wheelchair accessible. For general information, call (845) 437-5632 or log on to http://fllac.vassar.edu/. Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Cathy Jennings, office of campus activities, (845) 437-5370, as far in advance as possible to request appropriate and reasonable accommodations. Vassar is located on Raymond Avenue in Poughkeepsie.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations or information on accessibility should contact Campus Activities Office at (845) 437-5370. Without sufficient notice, appropriate space and/or assistance may not be available.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

This article was posted on Thursday, October 5th, 2000.