The Lawrenceville School - The Arts: Visual Arts

On Campus : The Arts : Visual Arts

The Lawrenceville School’s Art Department is located in the Gruss Center of Visual Arts, designed by Graham Gund Architects of Boston. The Carpenter Wing houses two general-purpose studios. The basement features photographic facilities including a main darkroom with 12 enlargers, two small master darkrooms, and digital editing facilities. The north end of the building consists of studios for ceramics, woodworking/sculpture, and printmaking/graphics. The second level provides generously proportioned studios for drawing and for painting, along with rooms equipped for lecture and Harkness discussion.

A Visiting Artist Lecture Series was inaugurated in 2002 with the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Subsequent visiting artist lecturers have included American realist painter Philip Pearlstein and photographer Andres Serrano. The annual lecture series seeks to bring major art world figures to the campus to give students, faculty, and the wider community the opportunity to experience the visual artist’s creative process firsthand. Students gain from the unforgettable experience of meeting an artist at the height of his/her career, an artist who is world-renowned and who will continue to have an impact on art beyond their own lifetime.

The Visual Arts program is unique in dedicating itself to collecting and preserving a permanent collection of art. The Hutchins Rotunda displays the School’s Permanent Collection and hosts up to three exhibitions each year. Special gems include Impressionist paintings by Willard Metcalf and Maurice Utrillo, portraits in the Grand Manner by Joshua Reynolds, works by American artists James Audobon, Philip Pearlstein, Aaron Siskind and Romare Bearden, ancient Mesoamerican sculpture, works on paper by European masters Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso, historic and contemporary photographs by Carlos Ponti and Andres Serrano, and several ancient Greek and Egyptian pieces. It is a “teaching collection” — broad-based and often presented in conjunction with courses on campus.

Rounding out the gallery scene, the Marguerite & James Hutchins Gallery, adjacent to the Hutchins Rotunda, features exhibitions of work by contemporary artists, most of whom are available to meet and talk with students at the Opening Receptions hosted by the gallery. The mission here is to present as wide a range of media, methods and conceptual ideas as possible and to allow for a dialogue between students and artists that will inform and enrich their studio experience. The Gallery also hosts an Annual Faculty Exhibition highlighting recent work by members of the Visual Art Department, and an annual Student Show.

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