Peabody Essex Museum

Natural Histories, Photographs by Barbara Bosworth
Opens April 14, 2012

The Year of Photography continues at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), with an exhibition of internationally-renowned, Boston-based photographer, Barbara Bosworth. Natural Histories, Photographs by Barbara Bosworth encompasses images of the artist’s family and their interactions with the natural world. Spanning 20 years of life and death, Bosworth captures moments of reflection and intimacy with exceptional elegance and sensitivity, conveying the generational bonds that anchor us to family and home.

“Featuring the oldest and youngest members of the family, these touching images explore the joy of youth and the wistfulness of aging, the nature of memory and the passage of time,” said Phillip Prodger, exhibition curator and PEM’s curator of photography. “Barbara has had major museum exhibitions across the country, but incredibly, she has never had a solo show in the Boston area. So we are especially proud to debut this important body of work here in New England.”

Natural Histories includes over 35 large-format color and black-and-white photographs, and a selection of bird eggs, drawings, and natural history dioramas handed down through the artist’s family. Throughout the photographs, radiant light appears, for example in the sky, a string of Christmas lights, or a jar full of fireflies. And like the snails, birds nests, and sharks teeth that she and her family collect, the artist’s photographs serve as time capsules recalling specific experiences. Deeply personal to the artist, many of these pictures will be appearing for the first time in the exhibition.

A Professor of photography at the Massachusetts College of Art, Bosworth has exhibited previously at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Phoenix Art Museum, and the Princeton University Art Museum, among others

FreePort [No. 005]: Michael Lin
Through May 27, 2013

Located in the: Asian Export Art: China, Mellon Staircase and Galleries

Artist Michael Lin spotlights PEM's renowned collection of Asian export art, particularly Mr. Nobody, one of the first representations of a European gentleman in Chinese porcelain. Animating the history of trade between China and the West, Lin creates a large-scale installation composed of hundreds of Chinese-produced replicas of Mr. Nobody in PEM's Asian Export galleries. Climbing up the walls of the Mellon Staircase and along the floor of the Export Silver Galleries, Lin - who is internationally recognized for his oversized paintings of ornamental design - creates a sprawling mural of original armorial and heraldic motifs that will be echoed in a pair of specially commissioned Bernardaud vases.

Generous support for FreePort [No. 005]: Michael Lin provided by Fay Chandler. PEM also wishes to thank donors to the 2012 FreePort Fund: Terry and Dick Albright, Jeffrey P. Beale, Mr. Alfred D. Chandler III and The Reverend Susan Esco Chandler. Additional support provided by Mandarin Oriental, Boston and the East India Marine Associates of the Peabody Essex Museum.

THE MIND’S EYE: 50 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHY BY JERRY UELSMANN
Through July 15

Beautiful and surreal, funny and provocative, the photographs of Jerry Uelsmann are icons of American photo history. The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) presents the first retrospective of Uelsmann’s work in over 30 years. The Mind’s Eye: 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann features 90 works spanning the artist’s celebrated and wide-ranging career, with well-known works shown alongside never-before-seen recent images.

As a pioneer of contemporary photography and master of experimental darkroom technique, Uelsmann has continuously pushed the creative and technical boundaries of photography, revealing new visual possibilities and critical considerations for the medium. In the late 1950s, Uelsmann began experimenting with multiple enlargers and advanced masking, diffusing, burning and dodging techniques, to create imaginary images in the darkroom decades before the advent of Photoshop. Uelsmann’s ingenious work references Surrealists like Rene Magritte, Max Ernst, and Man Ray, as well as Modern photographers such as Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. He has spent his career advocating for the acceptance of experimental photography as an art form.

“For more than half a century, Uelsmann has challenged conventional ideas about what photography can and should do,” said Phillip Prodger, exhibition curator and PEM’s curator of photography. “Uelsmann’s pictures provide a valuable touchstone for understanding new trends in photographic art. His ideas and example have become ever more relevant as photography embraces Photoshop and other computer technologies for altering and manipulating photographs.”

The Mind’s Eye presents works drawn from the artist’s personal archive of vintage materials and, in addition to photographic prints, includes a selection of three-dimensional photographic sculptures, films, artist’s books, albums and work prints to give viewers first-hand insight into Uelsmann’s creative process and expressive range. Through experimental techniques, Uelsmann has explored universal themes of relationships, family, home and politics by creating unexpected and surprising juxtapositions.

“My visual quest is driven by a desire to create a universe capable of supporting feelings and ideas,” said Jerry Uelsmann. “I am drawn to art that challenges one’s sense of reality.”

Born in Detroit in 1934, Uelsmann received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1957 and Master of Science and Master of Fine Arts degrees from Indiana University in 1960. He is recently retired from the faculty of the University of Florida, which he joined in 1960 . Uelsmann received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1967 he had his first solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

PRESS RECEPTION AND EXHIBITION TOUR

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2012 | 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM

Join us for a cocktail reception and exhibition tour of the galleries with the artist and PEM’s curator of photography, Phillip Prodger. RSVP to Whitney Riepe by Thursday, February 2, 2012 by emailing whitney_riepe@pem.org or calling 978-745-9500 x3228.

OPENING DAY CELEBRATION | SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2012 | 11 AM – 4:30 PM

Celebrate opening day of The Mind’s Eye with a day of activities inspired by the exhibition. Enjoy docent-led gallery tours, art making activities, film, and an artist presentation by Jerry Uelsmann. Details available at: http://www.pem.org/calendar.

EXHIBITION CATALOG

The Mind’s Eye: Photographs by Jerry Uelsmann, Modernbook Editions © 2010, Hardcover ($85), 296 pages, with text by Phillip Prodger and introduction by A.D. Coleman. Available at the PEM Shop, in person or online at: http://www.pemshop.com.

EXHIBITION SPONSORS

Support provided by the East India Marine Associates (EIMA) of the Peabody Essex Museum. The Mind's Eye: 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann is part of PEM's Year of Photography, which is sponsored in part by WBUR, Boston's NPR news station.

Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art
January 14 through April 29, 2012

SALEM, MA -- This winter, the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) presents, Shapeshifting, one of the largest Native American Art exhibitions to open in North America in more than 30 years. Nearly 80 works from public and private collections worldwide offer a far-reaching exploration of Native American art as a continuum, juxtaposing historic and contemporary artworks. Through constellations of objects created in a range of media - sculpture, painting, ceramics, textiles, photography, drawing, film, video and monumental installation - visual and conceptual connections are drawn between generations of Native people, art traditions and cultures. The exhibition opens to the public on Saturday, January 14, 2012.

"Typically arranged chronologically, geographically, or by medium, exhibitions of Native Art have almost exclusively focused on either historical or contemporary works, with very little mixing of the two," says Karen Kramer Russell, exhibition curator and PEM's curator of Native American Art and Culture. "Shapeshifting will prompt visitors to see the links and continuities within the vast panorama of Native American art, and to consider it with fresh eyes. Our intention is to shift how Native Art is exhibited and discussed."

Spanning vast cultural, historical, intellectual, and aesthetic terrain, Shapeshifting offers a new approach to Native American art by exploring the conceptual underpinnings and artistic intent of contemporary and historic artworks alike.

"We have been especially fortunate to have the wise counsel, creativity, and expertise of a stellar group of advisors, authors, and artists from a wide range of disciplines and experiences, including many from Native American and other cultures," said Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, The James B. and Mary Lou Hawkes Chief Curator at PEM.

Shapeshifting is organized into four thematic sections: Changing, Knowing, Locating, and Voicing. Two monumental contemporary installations that compellingly address familiar icons and materials-Kent Monkman's 2007 Théâtre de Cristal and Brian Jungen's 2002 Cetology-begin and end visitors' journey through the exhibition.

CHANGING | Expanding the imagination

GalaninNative artists have continuously embraced innovation, adapting new ideas and expanding their means of expression. Nicholas Galanin's 2006 video work, Tsu Heidei Shugaxtutaan (We Will Again Open This Container of Wisdom That Has Been Left in Our Care), powerfully conveys the artist's ability to overlay his experiences as a Native American in contemporary society with the cultural traditions of his Tlingit and Aleut ancestry. His two-part video begins with a non-Native break dancer in an empty industrial space performing modern dance moves to the chant and drum of a traditional Tlingit song. The second portion is a perfect inversion: a Tlingit dancer in full ceremonial garb performs a traditional dance to the beat of electro-bass techno against the backdrop of Tlingit carving motifs.

KNOWING | Expressing worldview

maskThe second gallery illustrates the strikingly different ways in which artists imagine, understand and express their experience in the world, especially as influenced by culture and unique personal vision. It is intended to counter the perception that Native people share a single monolithic worldview.The upper portion of a Yup'ik ceremonial mask from the early 1900s depicts walaunuk, the movement of bubbles rising to the surface of water. Among the Yup'ik of Alaska, bubbles are considered to be visible manifestations of breath and underwater life. A seal, for example, must willingly give up its life to a hunter and, when doing so, the animal's soul retreats to its bladder. In reciprocity for this sacrifice, Yup'ik men inflate seal bladders during a five-day winter festival. At the close of the festival, the seal bladders are deflated under the ice, returning the animal's spirit back to the water.

LOCATING | Exploring identity and place

Sitting BullAs in many cultures, the haunting question of 'where is home?' is undeniably formative. The third section of the exhibition considers the importance of family, community, land, and place in the cultivation of Native individual and tribal identity. Kevin Pourier's 2008 Sitting Bull Spoon revives the creative use of buffalo horn by 19th-century Lakota people. While wild buffalo populations have been largely decimated and few contemporary artists work in this medium, Pourier has taken the traditional practice of buffalo horn carving and has created something quite modern. An image of the legendary Hunkpapa Lakota leader, Sitting Bull, is painstaking rendered by incising, buffing, and inlaying minerals. Sitting Bull's signature monarch butterfly is shown fastened to his hat, while the motif flutters across the surface of the horn in bas-relief. For Lakota artist Pourier, the image of Sitting Bull represents Lakota strength and cultural endurance, while butterflies symbolize love and family.

VOICING | Engaging the individual

MonsterThe fourth thematic section of the exhibition focuses on the artist as an individual engaged in the process of self-expression while interacting with the rest of the world. Luiseño artist Fritz Scholder (1937-2005) has been called "the most influential, prolific, and controversial figures in the history of Native art."¹ Through his Super Indians series which he started in 1967, Scholder provided a dramatic counterpoint to the prevailing romantic depictions of Native life. Scholder depicts a Plains warrior wearing stereotypical Native American garb but renders the work in a Pop art color palate dominated by citrus and bubblegum tones in brushstrokes influenced by one of his teachers, painter, Wayne Thiebaud. Far from a placid sunset-infused portrait, this image is fueled by the political radicalism of the 1960s, brimming with energy and immediacy that can barely be contained by the picture frame.

OPENING DAY CELEBRATION | SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, 2012 | 10 AM - 5PM

Celebrate the opening of Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art with a day of performances, panel discussions, film, art activities, exhibition tours, and more. Details available at: www.pem.org/calendar

ATRIUM ALIVE WEEKEND FESTIVAL: SHAPESHIFTING | FEBRUARY 18 & 19, 2012 | 10 AM - 5 PM

Explore PEM's newest exhibition with a weekend of interactive and engaging programming. Song and dance, weaving demonstrations, artist lectures, art making and more. Visit www.pem.org/calendar for details.

PRESS PREVIEW AND EXHIBITION TOUR

TUESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2012 | 9:30 AM BREAKFAST | 10 AM REMARKS | 10:30 AM TOUR

Breakfast and exhibition tour of the galleries with PEM Curator of Native American Art and Culture, Karen Kramer Russell. RSVP to Whitney Riepe by Tuesday, January 3, 2012 by emailing whitney_riepe@pem.org or calling 978-745-9500 x3228.

EXHIBITION CATALOG

Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art, Yale University Press © 2012, Softcover ($39.95) and Hardcover ($65), 248 pages with featured essays by: Karen Kramer Russell, Bruce Bernstein, Joe D. Horse Capture, Jessica L. Horton, Janet Catherine Berlo, Paul Chaat Smith. Available at the PEM Shop, in person or online at: http://www.pemshop.com.

EXHIBITION SPONSORS

Exhibition supported in part by the Terra Foundation for American Art, Peck Stacpoole Foundation, the Bay and Paul Foundations, Ellen and Steve Hoffman, and the East India Marine Associates (EIMA) of the Peabody Essex Museum.

Unbound, Highlights from the Phillips Library at PEM
November 5, 2011 – November 2012

RARE OBJECTS FROM 300-YEAR-OLD MUSEUM LIBRARY COLLECTION UNVEILED

This fall, the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) presents over 30 rare and storied objects from the museum’s renowned Phillips Library, including a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible, original transcripts from the Salem witchcraft trials, and the first example of paper currency in the Western world. Boasting 400,000 books collected over three centuries, PEM’s Phillips Library is one of the largest and oldest museum libraries in the country. Through a selection of books, manuscripts, sketchbooks, maps and ephemera, Unbound, Highlights from the Phillips Library at PEM offers a glimpse into historical documents that were acquired for their power to delight the eye and change the world. The exhibition opens to the public on November 5, 2011.

“Equal parts aesthetically and intellectually engaging, this exhibition offers a unique opportunity to view some of the Phillips Library’s most wonderful objects,” says Sidney Berger, The Ann C. Pingree Director of the Phillips Library and exhibition curator. “From intricate botanical engravings and French lace samples, to a 16th-century Venetian astronomy text, these are the objects that fall into the margins of history. We are bringing them out for a rare moment in the sun.”

Unbound, Highlights from the Phillips Library at PEM is organized in the following three sections:

RARELY SEEN
A selection of rare and delicate objects include a folio of Sukiya ezu, or Japanese pop-up teahouses, created in the early 19th century. These 90 exquisitely detailed and ingeniously constructed manuscripts unfold to reveal pop-up models of historic Japanese teahouses from the 13th to 19th centuries, many of which no longer stand. Each element is hand-drawn and hand-cut to realistically render the teahouses’ architectural elements, from room dividers and windows to doorways and passages.

POWERFUL STORIES
A remarkably well-preserved leaf from the Gutenberg Bible (Isaiah XVII-XIX) leads off the next section of the exhibition which features documents that tell powerful stories. Created in 1450-1455, the Gutenberg Bible stands as the first example of a book printed in the West using movable type. The process, invented by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany, dramatically revolutionized the production and distribution of the printed word. With fewer than 50 copies in existence, the Gutenberg Bible is considered one of the most iconic and studied books in history.

DELIGHT THE EYE
The exhibition also includes objects from the Phillips Library whose aesthetic concerns are paramount. Featured are progressive proofs for a chromolithograph portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven created in 1870 by Louis Prang & Co., the premier lithography company of its day. Hauntingly beautiful and richly detailed, this series of progressives show the elaborate and highly intensive printing process that begins with a shadowy outline and, after overprinting 25 colors, ends with a dimensional, fully realized portrait.

PRESS RECEPTION & TOUR | WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2011 | 6 - 9 PM
Join Sidney Berger, The Ann C. Pingree Director of the Phillips Library and exhibition curator, for an evening cocktail reception and tour of Unbound, Highlights from the Phillips Library at PEM. RSVP to Whitney Riepe by November 1 by emailing whitney_riepe@pem.org or calling 978-745-9500 x3228.

EXHIBITION CREDIT
Support for the exhibition has been provided in part by members of the Library Visiting Committee including Katherine H. Duffy, Tom and Monica Healey, Mr. and Mrs. James F. Hunnewell Jr., Tim and Joanie Ingraham, Mr. and Mrs. Scott E. Offen, Mr. and Mrs. Stuart W. Pratt, Robert N. Shapiro, and Mr. and Mrs. William S. Strong, as well as by the East India Marine Associates (EIMA) of the Peabody Essex Museum. Additional support provided by EBSCO.

ABOUT THE PHILLIPS LIBRARY
The Phillips Library is part of the Peabody Essex Museum and is located in two architecturally noted structures, the John Tucker Daland House and Plummer Hall. As one of New England’s oldest libraries, the library has an international reputation as a major resource for maritime history and art, New England life and culture, American decorative arts, Asian art and culture, Native American history and art, and the art and culture of Oceania. The library provides researchers, curators, and the general public access to 400,000 printed volumes, over a mile of manuscript shelves, and an extensive collection of ephemera, broadsides, pamphlets, and a substantial run of periodicals.

FreePort [No. 004]: Peter Hutton
Opening July 30

At PEM, Hutton presents two silent films that explore the interface of nature and industrialization. At Sea (2004-2007) depicts the life cycle of a container ship -- from mechanized construction in Korean shipyards to a journey across the Atlantic, ending with the manual labor of ship breakers in Bangladesh. Using a split screen and fixed perspective, Two Rivers (2001-2002) tracks boat travel up New York's Hudson River and down China's Yangtze River, witnessing the ebb and flow of trade, industry and human progress. Two Rivers is shown in conjunction with Painting the American Vision, an exhibition of Hudson River School landscape paintings.

Support provided by donors to the 2011 FreePort Fund and by the East India Marine Associates (EIMA) of the Peabody Essex Museum.Support provided by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, donors to the FreePort Fund and the East India Marine Associates (EIMA) of the Peabody Essex Museum

Painting the Modern in India
On view April 10, 2010 to June 1, 2012
Located in the: Contemporary Native American Art, Wheatland Gallery

Painting the Modern in India features seven renowned painters who came of age during the height of the movement to free India from British rule. To liberate themselves from a position at the margins of an art world shaped by the colonial establishment, they organized path-breaking associations - the Calcutta Artists Group in 1943, the Progressive Artists Group in 1947 Bombay, and the Delhi Shilpi Chakra in 1949. They pioneered new approaches to painting, repositioning their own art practices internationally and in relation to the 5,000-year history of art in India.

These artists created hybrid styles that are an under-appreciated yet essential component of the broad sweep of art in the 20th century. After independence in 1947, they took advantage of new opportunities in art centers around the world, especially Paris, London and New York, intensifying their quests for what the Bombay Progressives termed "aesthetic order, plastic coordination and color composition." At the same time, they looked deeply into their own artistic heritage, learning from the first exhibition of Indian art in 1948 at Raj Bhavan in Delhi and taking inspiration from ancient sites like the old city in Benaras and the temples at Khajuraho.

The works on view are drawn from the Peabody Essex Museum's Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection, the most important holding of 20th-century art from India in this country, and The Tina and Anil Ambani Collection, one of India's leading private collections.

Despite their evident grandeur, Ruwedel’s vistas of the American West transcend documentation of craggy rock formations, wide-open skies and dramatic sweeps of uninhabited land. Far beyond traditional landscapes, the images raise questions about nature, permanence and the meaning of photographic representation.

Faces of Devotion, Indian Sculpture from the Figiel Collection
On view April 10, 2010 to January 16, 2012
Traditional Indian Art Gallery

The Peabody Essex Museum recently acquired the Dr. Leo Figiel Collection of Indian sculpture––widely regarded as the finest collection of its kind. This exhibition presents a dramatic selection of ritual bronzes spanning the last millennium featuring depictions of deified heroes, pastoral gods and goddesses, and totemic animal spirits. These bronzes were principally made for Hindu ritual practice in the west and southwest regions of India and are the best examples of local and vernacular artistry. A complement to neighboring galleries of traditional and contemporary Indian art, this exhibition offers an opportunity to explore the connections between India’s artistic past and present.

Of Gods and Mortals, Traditional Art from India
On view through March 1, 2012
Traditional Indian Art Gallery

In India, art is an integral part of daily life. The importance of paintings, sculpture, textiles and other art forms comprises two basic categories, one related to religious practices and the other to the expression of prestige and social position. This new installation of works from the Peabody Essex Museum’s collection of Indian art will feature approximately 28 pieces, principally representing the 1800’s to the present.

Ripple Effect, The Art of H2O
Saturday, June 18 -

This summer, the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) dives into the dynamic, varied and beautiful world of water to present Ripple Effect, The Art of H2O. Inspired by natural phenomena such as fog, snowflakes and geysers, the 16 artists featured in Ripple Effect explore water in its liquid, gas and solid states as a rich source for creative expression. The exhibition presents artworks in a variety of mediums, including blown glass, photography, clay and sound, and challenges visitors to consider this life-sustaining substance often taken for granted. On view in PEM's interactive Art & Nature Center, Ripple Effect opens to the public on Saturday, June 18.

"Not a moment goes by that we don't encounter water. It surrounds us in the air we breathe and fills every cell in our bodies, yet we rarely take notice of it - except when we don't have enough of it or encounter too much of it," says Jane Winchell, curator of Ripple Effect and PEM's Sarah Fraser Robbins Director of the Art & Nature Center. "Ripple Effect invites visitors to experience water as a unique artistic medium and to consider its remarkable physical properties, which also make life possible."

Water is the only natural substance on earth that exists in three forms - liquid, solid and gas. Ripple Effect is organized around these physical states and features artworks, media elements and hands-on stations that let visitors explore the art and science of water.

Liquid
Compelled by water's movement, moods and life-giving properties, many artists who work with it focus on the liquid state. New England-based artist Janet Fredericks makes drawings directly in bodies of water, recording what she calls "the language of flowing water." For her work Tracings, New Haven River, Fredericks placed a large drape of watercolor paper in the bed of the New Haven River to capture the network of shadows, currents and play of light with lithography crayons. At the nearby interactive Water Shadows station, visitors investigate the effects of light and shadow in water as they generate their own wave patterns.

Solid
Artists in Ripple Effect also work with myriad forms of ice, ranging from intricate snowflakes to towering glaciers. Norwegian musician and composer Terje Isungset responds to the sounds natural ice produces by crafting instruments made of glacial ice. In Ripple Effect, visitors watch a video of Isungset at work and listen to the haunting and utterly unique sounds produced by his ice horn and percussion instruments.

Gas
Being invisible, water vapor is a challenging artistic medium. But water vapor in transition to liquid - in the form of clouds, fog, mist or steam - has captured artists' imagination. In Ned Kahn's Sea of Clouds, visitors interact with an undulating pool of ultrasonic fog. When air currents are altered through touch and motion, mesmerizing fog patterns morph and transition from liquid to vapor and back again. Visitors can further investigate water vapor at the nearby Fog Chamber interactive, where they can make ephemeral clouds out of thin air.

Ripple Effect is supported by ECHO (Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations), the Art & Nature Committee and the East India Marine Associates (EIMA) of the Peabody Essex Museum.

SPECIAL EVENT

Splish, Splash -- Opening day of Ripple Effect, The Art of H2O

Saturday, June 18, 2011 | 10 am - 4 pm

Enjoy a wet and wonderful day at PEM in celebration of Ripple Effect, The Art of H2O, opening in the interactive Art & Nature Center! Participate in a bubble show, play with water, listen to water-inspired tales, meet artists and create your own water-based art. All activities FREE with admission.

Fish, Silk, Tea, Bamboo: Cultivating an Image of China
March 14, 2009 to January 31, 2013

Through delicate works on paper and other select objects, explore four essential motifs Westerners often associate with China -- fish, silk, tea, bamboo. Each was cultivated for artistic expression as well as profit. All helped shape the emerging concept of the Middle Kingdom in 18th-century Europe.

Support provided by the East India Marine Associates (EIMA) of the Peabody Essex Museum.

Perfect Imbalance, Exploring Chinese Aesthetics
March 11, 2009 to January 31, 2013

Chinese culture is diverse, longstanding and ever-changing. Yet common ties unite. This exhibition offers an approach to understanding Chinese culture through a study and celebration of the aesthetics of Chinese art. Objects included reveal key aesthetic clues that define the art of China, and distinguish it from art produced by neighboring regions, or art made in China for the export market. These aesthetic standards prevailed with the passing of time and foreign influences. Ultimately they are a testament to the power of art. The exhibition features 30 objects that date from the Neolithic era to 2004 in a range of media including paintings, jade, textiles, porcelain and prints.

Support provided by the East India Marine Associates (EIMA) of the Peabody Essex Museum.

Auspicious Wishes and Natural Beauty in Korean Art
December 14, 2007 to January 31, 2013

Newly redesigned and reinstalled, the museum’s Yu Kil-Chun Gallery of Korean Art and Culture features a new exhibition – Auspicious Wishes and Natural Beauty in Korean Art – exploring the use of symbols and natural materials in Korean aesthetic tradition. Drawing from PEM’s extensive collection, the exhibition features works from the 17th century to the present, many on view for the first time. Highlights from the new gallery include a pair of 5-foot tall carved stone scholars (17-18th century) created to guard the sacred space of a family tomb and an extraordinary model of the men’s quarters of an upper-class Korean home. Dating from around 1900, this 4½-foot long model is the only one of its kind known to exist. PEM's Korean collection, more than a century old, was the first of its kind in the United States and has grown to become one of the most important in the country.

Calendar

RECURRING PROGRAMS

PEM PALS: Select Wednesdays | 10:30 – 11:30 am | FREE
Books, movement, music, art and hands-on activities designed for preschoolers and their caregivers. Visit pem.org/calendar.

WEEKEND ART ACTIVITIES: Saturdays & Sundays | 1 - 3 pm | FREE
Drop by for hands on art activities the whole family will enjoy!