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Exhibitions

For 60 years, Sheldon Museum of Art has provided a venue for students, faculty and staff, alumni, and visitors to engage with art and one another. As an academic art museum, Sheldon schedules its exhibitions to coincide with the academic calendar.

Blue Skies Ahead: Works by Russell T. Gordon, Patrick Hughes, and Byron Kim

August 15, 2024 through December 29, 2024 Forecasts typically prepare us for what lies ahead. This exhibition, organized by members of the Sheldon Student Advisory Board, presents artworks that let the sunshine in through feelings of joy, wonder, and whimsy.

Voting is People Power

August 15, 2024 through December 29, 2024 Featuring works that support political campaigns, advocate for voting rights, and capture the energy of elections, Voting is People Power encourages individuals to actively engage in the process of democracy.

Sheldon in Focus: Jacob Lawrence

August 15, 2024 through December 29, 2024 For this iteration of Sheldon in Focus, the museum presents two significant works by Lawrence—the painting Paper Boats (1948) and the eight-print series Eight Studies for The Book of Genesis (1990).

Uncanny Encounters: The Disturbing, Surreal, and Supernatural in American Art

August 15, 2024 through December 29, 2024 When does the familiar appear unfamiliar? How does an image become psychically charged? Uncanniness in visual art, whether intended by the artist or not, occurs when realism slips into the realm of the unreal and inexplicable.

Unprecedented: Art in Times of Crisis

January 24, 2024 through July 7, 2024 This exhibition explores art produced in response to either global or internal events experienced during periods of plight. The works in Unprecedented are artists’ expressions and documentation of humanity’s ability to weather times of uncertainty and upheaval.

(In)credible: Exploring Trust and Misperceptions

January 24, 2024 through July 7, 2024 We live in a time of extensive information, misinformation, disinformation, and declining trust in experts and institutions. How do we sort through the vast amount of available information to determine what is, or is not, trustworthy?

Sheldon in Focus: The New York School

January 24, 2024 through July 7, 2024 Beginning in the 1940s, nestled within the drafty lofts and studio apartments of Lower Manhattan, a group of avant-garde artists experimented with painting and sculpture, resulting in the development of a new American art movement.

Sheldon Statewide 2023–2024: A Day's Work

August 30, 2023 through May 30, 2024 How do we visualize labor? How can art contribute to, as well as challenge, our understanding of labor?

From Here to the Horizon: Photographs in Honor of Barry Lopez

August 18, 2023 through December 21, 2023 This exhibition celebrates the unprecedented gift of more than ninety works donated by fifty American photographers to honor the writer Barry Lopez, best known for Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape, which received the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1986.

X: A Decade of Collecting, 2012–2022

August 18, 2023 through December 21, 2023 This exhibition presents a snapshot of a point in the evolution of Sheldon’s holdings, surveying the 1,850 artworks that entered the collection from 2012 through 2022.