The Wilson Museum actively collects art in support of our core mission as a teaching museum. Since opening in 2004, we have added hundreds of items to our collection and only a fraction has been on public view. Hidden Treasures features works in a variety of media including work by Carrie Mae Weems, Ron Kleeman, Lizzie Nungarday, and Kay Ross.

Frederick Sommer (1905 – 1999) was a master artist whose work influenced generations of photographers. Often recognized for his elegant black-and-white photographs with distinctive images of surrealist collages, horizonless landscapes, out-of-focus nudes, and cameraless abstractions. Sommer also maintained lifelong interests in drawing, painting, collage, poetry, and prose. Using a variety of media to experiment with figure and shape, he created an unusually diverse body of work a portion of which will be on view in this exhibition that examines more than fifty years of his work organized collaboratively by the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum and the Frederick and Frances Sommer Foundation.

New Mexico-based artist Holly Roberts begins with photographs to produce multi-media expressions of human drama. Described as “kind but unflinching,” she creates pieces which are equally sweet and complex. Deeply influenced by Native American figures and spirituality, Roberts’ work reflects the questions and ambiguities of daily life, leading the viewer to apply her art to their own life. Roberts graduated with her M.F.A. from Arizona State University and has received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Bill White, Professor of Art, spent the fall of 2006 living and working in Kent, England while on a sabbatical leave from Hollins, funded by a Cabell Grant. The works exhibited were painted “en plein air” at varied locations in the fields around the small village of Hastingleigh. The quintessential landscapes show herds of black-faced sheep, the mercurial weather, and the soft light of England where one minute the sky is clear and the next the clouds scutter by, bringing rain. White received his M.F.A. from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, and has had solo exhibits in New York City, Philadelphia, and throughout Virginia.

Hollins Photography Festival
Saturday, April 12, 2008

Please join us for a one-day celebration of photography featuring the exhibitions of Frederick Sommer and Holly Roberts. Presentations include Hollins University Professor of Art History Kim Rhodes, 2008 Frances Niederer Artist-in-Residence Holly Roberts, New York-based artist/photographer Lori Nix, and more. This event is sponsored by the Art Department with support from the Cynthia Andrews Fund and presented in conjunction with the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum.

This exhibition features the work of the members of the class of 2008 majoring in studio art and film & photography: Olivia Page Body, Casey Ann Bridgers, Kristin Bringewatt, Keri “Sssargon” Cheely, Keely Comstock, Pamela Marie Cruz, Meg Graninger, Stephanie Lohmann, E. Ogier, Shannon Sarkozy, Mary Celeste Townsend, Sarah Triplett, Sherry Tucciarone, Ashley Lenore Walther, Racheal W. Yang, and Stacy D. Zimmerman.