Main Page Content

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.

The Road Less Traveled

January 25, 2022 through July 2, 2022 The road trip holds a beloved place in the American memory, conjuring fond recollections of childhood journeys and long, endless highways. This exhibition complicates such an ideal with the realities of infrastructure and environment.

The Scene Changes: Sculpture from the Collection

February 1, 2022 through July 2, 2022 Sculptors have increasingly infused process and form with expressions of social dynamics and examination of the past. Here, works selected from the tenure of each of Sheldon’s five directors present a changing scene as well as an evolution in the medium’s potential for narrative.

Fleeting Moments of Joy

January 25, 2022 through July 2, 2022 Images of people at play are presented alongside works in which artists have played with our expectations of form, medium, and subject matter.

Figurative Painting from the Collection

January 25, 2022 through July 2, 2022 The large-scale, figurative works in this exhibition focus attention on artists who use their subjects as both the reason to paint and the embodiment of historical or personal moments.

Sheldon Treasures

August 13, 2021 through December 23, 2021 The fall 2021 iteration of Sheldon Treasures showcases works from the museum’s collection that feature the figure.

The Nature of Waste: Material Pathways, Discarded Worlds

August 13, 2021 through December 23, 2021 Surveying artworks that use as inspiration castoffs, leftovers, junk, detritus, scarcity, and ruins, this exhibition contributes to contemporary conversations on the Anthropocene, the geological age in which humans currently live.

Point of Departure: Abstraction 1958–Present

August 13, 2021 through December 23, 2021 Point of Departure draws primarily from the museum’s extensive holdings of large, two-dimensional abstraction. Each of the works gives proof of the continued importance and resonance of artworks created devoid of recognizable subject matter.

Framing a Legacy: Gifts from Ann and James Rawley

August 13, 2021 through December 9, 2021 This exhibition is a celebration of gifts to the museum from longtime supporters Ann and James Rawley. It not only highlights their affinity for collecting paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, but also Ann’s meticulous framing practice.

Sheldon Treasures

January 22, 2021 through July 3, 2021 From January to July 2021, the works featured in Sheldon Treasures will be placed in pairs to encourage new ways of looking at familiar objects, facilitating fresh and unexpected conversations between the works — and among the museum's visitors.

Barriers and Disparities: Housing in America

January 22, 2021 through July 3, 2021 To contribute to better understanding of the close relationship between residential instability and poverty, this exhibition explores selected moments in the history of inequitable access to housing in America.