Current Exhibitions
Jean Hélion, Painting is a Language: Paris, New York, Rockbridge Baths
October 3- December 15, 2024
Jean Hélion (1904-1987) is best known for his early modernist paintings, prints and drawings; his affiliation with important modernist artists working in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s; and being an important intermediary between European and American modernist artists in Paris and New York. Hollins has enjoyed an 80-year association with Hélion, which began in 1943-44, and this exhibit features works from the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum’s permanent collection, augmented by artwork from the collection of Louis and Suzanne Blair. The exhibition includes sketches and drawings from Hélion’s studio, many of which have never been on public view.
Hélion first visited the U.S. in 1932 after marrying Jean Blair, a native of Virginia, and he spent the next 14 years living between Paris, New York, and Rockbridge Baths, VA. This period witnessed profound events in Hélion’s life: his internment in a Nazi prisoner of war camp from 1940-42, and his evolution from a purely abstract artist to a painter of modern objects, scenes, and people. This exhibition traces Hélion’s artistic style throughout his decades-long career. Hélion believed that “painting is a language” and viewed art as a connecting, creative force which allowed for the simultaneous expression of multiple dimensions of experience and imagination.
The “two Jeans” had a son, Louis, born in 1939; in early 2016, Louis donated a treasure trove of almost 400 sketches, drawings, prints, and small paintings by his father to the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University. This large gift was preceded by four works given in honor of Professor Emeritus of Painting Bill White’s retirement in 2010, and followed by additional gifts in 2017, 2018, and 2024, thus giving Hollins University the largest collection of works by Jean Hélion in the United States.
Jean Hélion, Painting is a Language: Paris, New York, and Rockbridge Baths is co-curated by Eleanor D. Wilson Museum Director Jenine Culligan, M.A., and Hollins University Associate Professor of Art History Genevieve Hendricks, Ph.D. This exhibition and its associated programs are sponsored in part by the City of Roanoke through the Roanoke Arts Commission. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue, made possible by Suzanne Blair, which includes a foreword by Hollins University President Mary Dana Hinton, Ph.D.; essays by Jenine Culligan, Genevieve Hendricks, and Bill White; a painting memoir by Suzanne Blair; and a chronology of Hélion’s life compiled by Anna Woods, Hollins class of ’26. The catalogue was designed by Laura Jane Ramsburg with photos by Laura Carden.
IMAGE: Jean Hélion, Abstraction, 1938. Oil on canvas, 19 x 10 1/2”. Hollins art department purchase, 1939. Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University, 2005.175.
Stewarding Siddy’s Dream: 20 Years of the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum
October 17 – December 15, 2024
The Eleanor D. Wilson Museum opened in 2004 thanks to the generosity and vision of Hollins alumna Eleanor D. “Siddy” Wilson ’30. Siddy initially gifted $3 million to renovate the former Fishburn Library into the state-of-the-art Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center, named for her grandfather. She then gave an additional endowment so Hollins could open and sustain a “real art museum” that would collect and care for artwork as well as display it. Over the following years, many individuals and groups have had a hand in the continued stewardship of Siddy’s dream.
Building on over a century of art exhibitions organized by members of the Hollins art department, this 20th anniversary exhibition features internationally recognized artists including Käthe Kollwitz and Josef Albers; Roanoke favorites Dorothy Gillespie and Susan Jamison; and calls for social justice from Enrique Chagoya and Matika Wilbur. Exhibition co-curators Laura Jane Ramsburg and Laura Carden Ilawan trace the transformation of the Hollins art collection into an accessible teaching museum to serve the campus community and beyond.
IMAGE: Suzanne Schireson, Overturned Chair, 2023. Oil on paper. Gift of the artist. Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University, 2023.003.
Expanding Narratives: Conversations with the Collection
currently available online
Faculty members from across academic divisions have collaborated with museum staff to select works from the collection that investigate key course concepts and provide extended access to the individual works of art. Participating departments include art history, biology, classics, English, gender and women studies, history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and studio art.
Unveiling the Past: Reckoning with Our History of Enslavement at Hollins
currently available online
In spring 2020, students in the Cultural Property, Rights and Museum course began working on an exhibit, Unveiling the Past: Reckoning with Our History of Enslavement at Hollins University, in conjunction with members of the Hollins University Working Group on Slavery and Its Contemporary Legacies. The exhibit examines objects and images held by the University Archives in the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University. Material researched by students are on display in this virtual exhibit. Those working on this exhibit wanted to create a public space to reckon with our Hollins past and give a forum to those who were not given a voice, name, space, or attention in the past. It is the goal of this exhibit to show the lasting effects slavery has had, and continues to have, here; and, to recognize that Hollins continues to benefit from a history of enslavement.
Exploring Visual and Conceptual Space: Student Selections from the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum
currently available online
Using selected works from the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum’s permanent collection, student curators put theory into practice in this virtual exhibit which is the culmination of the spring class, “Behind the Scenes: Principles and Practice.” As part of the class, students collaborate and share responsibility for conceptualizing, researching, designing, and interpreting a cohesive exhibition. Each student selected two works that spoke to them based on academic, personal, and aesthetic interests. The exhibit features works created by well-known artists Giovanni Battista Piranesi, John James Audubon, Käthe Kollwitz, Paul Klee, Salvador Dalí, and Andy Warhol, as well as works by Hedley Fitton, Jean Lurçat, Paule Gobillard, Eudora Welty, and others.
When placed together, these works form an image of the Eleanor D. Wilson collection as a small but artistically and historically rich collection – especially when seen through the eyes of Hollins student curators Madelyn Farrow, Faith Herrington, Sylvia Lane, Mairwen Minson, Kaiya Ortiz, Valerie Sargeant, and Maddie Zanie.