Admission:

• $5
• free to members and students with a valid ID

Gallery Hours:

• Tuesday – Friday, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
• Saturday and Sunday, 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

General Cornell Fine Arts Description

The Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Central Florida’s most comprehensive collegiate fine arts museum, is located on the campus of Rollins College in Winter Park. Accredited by the American Association of Museums, the newly expanded Cornell re-opened in January 2006 and is home to over 5,500 works of art from the ancient to the contemporary. Highlights from the permanent collection include paintings, prints, sculpture and drawings by Winslow Homer, Albert Bierstadt, Pablo Picasso and Henrí Matisse, among others, that are shown on a revolving basis. The Cornell at Rollins presents a wide-ranging exhibition program, which changes seasonally, complemented by a roster of outstanding scholarly presentations and gallery talks.

The Cornell Fine Arts Museum annually presents 6-15 originally conceived and curated exhibitions including past showings featuring Louise Nevelson in Nevelson by Night; Henri Matisse’s Jazz; Revising Arcadia: The Landscape in Contemporary Art and Painting for Joy: New Japanese Paintings of the 1990s, sponsored by the Japan Foundation of Tokyo with the Consulate General of Japan in Miami. Current exhibitions at the Cornell feature Rembrandt van Rijn in Sordid and Sacred: The Beggars in Rembrandt’s Etchings, Selections from the John Villarino Collection; L.C. Armstrong: The Paradise Triptychs and Josef Albers in Josef Albers Color Genius. Future exhibitions will include Jack R. Smith: Portraits of American Poets, featuring one of the most powerful of contemporary portraitists working in America, Jack R. Smith; Jess: To and From the Printed Page which focuses on the work of the San Francisco-based artist Jess (Collins) and the ways in which his imagery was in dialogue with the written word; and Portrait of a Lady, which showcases selections from the Cornell’s permanent collection of portraits and works about and by women. Showings are complimented by a roster of outstanding scholarly presentations and gallery talks.

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Exhibitions Showing:

Rare Soviet Propaganda Posters on View at Cornell Fine Arts Museum
Exhibitions Open January 23 - Summer 2010

On January 23, 2010, the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College premieres a selection of rare, Stalinist-era propaganda posters from its permanent collection, along with a group of American and British propaganda posters from World War I, also from the collection. Entitled Man and the Machine, each poster group stands on its own as representations of the power of the image—and the artist—in social and political history. Juxtaposed as they are here, the two groups invite dialogue: between visual discourses of the machine, constructions of masculinity and femininity, urbanization, and nationalism. Many of the Soviet posters, for example, promote the collectivization of land and posit an agrarian utopia based on mechanical-industrial progress. One poster champions the use of female labor on kolkhozes, or collective farms: “Our duty is to push women in Kolkhozes forward and put this force into action,” urges the slogan, a quote by Josef Stalin, and the image depicts a woman behind a plow. The WWI posters, on the other hand, promote individual efforts to conserve or produce food in support of the Allied war effort. These American (and some British) posters both implicitly and explicitly call into question utopian visions of the machine and, in fact, depict its destructive capabilities.

The Poster Collection: Lost, Found, Restored. Although part of CFAM’s collection for many years, this significant trove of Soviet posters was only re-discovered during the Museum’s major renovation project between 2004 and 2006. All were in a very advanced state of deterioration. Museum staff believe the posters—ca. 1930—were given to Rollins sometime in the 1940s and were originally held by the library. There, according to Robyn Allers, Interim Director of CFAM, “very conscientious librarians—not realizing the artistic value of these works--catalogued each poster, writing a call number in pencil and affixing a gum label containing a translation of the text on the front of each poster.” Beyond these obvious restoration issues, each poster required extensive conservation and restoration to make them exhibition-ready. This meticulous work, by conservator Alexandra von Hawk, has been extensively documented, and this documentation will be included in the exhibition.

Man and the Machine will continue CFAM’s mission of providing the highest quality exhibitions that encourage interdisciplinary thought. In technique and style, the hand of the artist is evident in each graphic image. Also evident, is the manipulative intent of the commissioner. Through these images, some of them shockingly direct, viewers will step back into a not-too-distant past and will find both parallels to the visual imagery bombarding them today as well as reminders of how powerful a tool the visual arts can be in service to ideology or cause—for good or ill.


Wonderful and Curious
January 23 - Summer 2010

What began as a natural history collection of assorted ferns, shells, arrowheads and bone fragments has grown and evolved over 120 years into the richly diverse art collection of today’s Cornell Fine Arts Museum (CFAM) at Rollins College. In honor of the College’s 125th Anniversary in 2010, CFAM presents the aptly named Wonderful and Curious, an exhibition that traces the genesis of the permanent collection, from the Native American artifacts donated by the Smithsonian Institution in the 1930s to some of the major paintings and decorative objects given to the College during the presidency of Hamilton Holt, President of Rollins from 1925-1949. The long history of the Museum is closely tied to the history of Rollins College itself, with many objects bequeathed to the Museum by some of the College’s most prominent benefactors. Many of these objects have never before been on public view. Composed of furnishings, bronze sculptures, Middle Eastern artifacts, religious iconography, and fine paintings, this exhibition illustrates the expansive view of the world that President Holt encouraged at Rollins.


Out of the Shadow
Opens January 23

The season is rounded out with Out of the Shadow, an exhibition of works by 19th-century American women that explores the avenues available to women of that time pursuing art education. Works by Mary Cassatt and members of the Peale family are included.

Educational programs to coincide with the exhibitions include public talks by Alexandra VonHawk, who conserved the posters, on the conservation process, and Stephanie Strass, speaking on female artists of the 19th century, with reference to works and artists in the exhibition Out of the Shadow.

COUNTDOWN
Works of Art by the Class of 2010

WINTER PARK, FL – The Cornell Fine Arts Museum, in collaboration with the Department of Art and Art History at Rollins College, is proud to announce the premiere of Countdown, an exhibition showcasing the work of five senior art majors from the Class of 2010. An opening reception will be held on Friday, April 23, from 5-7 p.m. The exhibition will be on view from April 24-May 9.

The final show of the seniors’ undergraduate careers, Countdown represents the culmination of their artistic efforts and accomplishments over the past four years as students of painting, photography, and graphic design.

Tayler Bolding, 22, from Merritt Island, FL, uses the classic pin-up icon as a platform for discussing today’s body image issues. Andrew Cohen, 21, of Marietta, GA, arranges photographs that depict the invasive presence and over-consumption of alcohol on college campuses. Marie Patrick, 24, from Les Cayes, Haiti, explores the multifarious relationship between humans and their technological extensions. Joy Powell, 22, of Apopka, FL, illustrates the powerful connection between music, imagery and imagination. Eric Short, 22, from Amarillo, TX, creates fashionable tableaus through the lens of documentary portraiture and broken narratives.

The students also worked together to design the publicity materials and to promote the opening of their show as emerging artists in the community.

The exhibition was juried by Professor E. Brady Robinson of the University of Central Florida, Professor Shona Macdonald of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Alya Poplawsky, CFAM Curator of Education and Special Projects. The jurors’ selections exemplify the students’ talents, technical prowess and ingenuity.