Artes Etrvriae Renascvntvr.

Sir William Hamilton, Josiah Wedgwood, and the Dream of Etruria
August 26, 2007 – January 13, 2008

Explore the English passion for Greek, Etruscan and Roman culture during the late 18th century by comparing actual Greek red-figure pottery with Josiah Wedgwood’s “copies” and Sir William Hamilton’s “reproductions”.

Josiah Wedgwood was caught up in the passion for Greek, Etruscan, and Roman culture that swept England during the later 18th century. Together with Sir William Hamilton, who formed a large collection of ancient Greek vases, he was partly responsible for the British fascination with Italy.  This exhibition will explore the reception of classical Greek and Roman culture in the 18th century using Wedgwood’s Etruscan ware as a case study, compare actual Greek red-figure pottery on loan from  Emory Universtiy's Michael C. Carlos Museum with Wedgwood’s “copies,” and highlight Sir William Hamilton’s collection, as reproduced in the Hamilton folios, as both source and inspiration for Wedgwood.

*Join us for ArtBreak on Tuesday, January 8 at noon when Jasper Gaunt, Curator of Greek and Roman Art, Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University talks "Vases and Volcanoes" as it relates to Sir William Hamilton and Archaeology.

Promise and Peril: Images of Westward Expansion from the Westervelt-Warner Museum of American Art

October 28, 2007 – January 7, 2008

The paintings and sculpture in this exhibition depict a land of possibility and beauty, danger and bewilderment as settlers headed west and Native Americans were displaced.  Works by American masters Thomas Cole, George Catlin, and Frederic Remington define how the Western frontier helped to shape the nation.

In the nineteenth century, the United States expanded toward the Pacific in fulfillment of its “Manifest Destiny.” During this time, artists increasingly turned their attentions to the frontier, depicting the “Golden West” as a place filled with promise yet fraught with danger, not only for settlers, but also for the American Indians they displaced.  Including works by masters such as Thomas Cole, Alfred Jacob Miller, George Catlin, and Frederic Remington, this exhibition—the second in a series of four drawn from the Westervelt Warner Museum in Tuscaloosa—examines America’s fascination with the frontier and how images of the West helped to define the nation.