Museum Opportunities

Portland and Boston

Portland Museum of Art: Winslow Homer’s Civil War: September 7, 2013 – December 8, 2013
In conjunction with the Maine Civil War Trail Project, a series of special displays at more than 20 museums and historical societies around the state commemorating the sesquicentennial of the conflict, the Portland Museum of Art will present an exhibition of Winslow Homer’s wood engravings drawn from its permanent collection. Widely regarded as one of America’s greatest artists, Winslow Homer first gained national recognition for images of the Civil War that he produced for the popular magazine Harper’s Weekly. As an artist-correspondent “embedded” with Union troops, he made several trips to the Virginia front. Based on this first-hand experience, Homer took an unconventional approach to representing war. Instead of depicting battle scenes according to the heroizing pictorial formulae of the genre, he humanized the conflict with pictures that examined soldiers’ daily life in camp and the war’s impact on women and the home front. This exhibition showcases Homer’s unique vision of modern warfare and keen eye for social commentary.
Media sponsorship is provided by WCSH 6 and Down East magazine.

Evening for Educators: September 25, 2013
Seeing “Winslow Homer’s Civil War”: Six Ideas to Keep in Mind
A special lecture by Peter Wood, Professor Emeritus, Duke University 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Free for teachers, 10% off in PMA Store, two contact hours. Pre-registration required: www.portlandmuseum.org/teachers/evening.shtml

Winslow Homer had just turned 25 when the Civil War began. This talk by Peter Wood will use pictures in the PMA exhibition, Winslow Homer’s Civil War, to explore the young artist’s wartime experiences and images from half a dozen angles. Homer’s brief time at the front and his steady work at Harper’s Weekly expanded his perspectives and shaped his long career. “Homer always challenges us to think in fresh ways,” Wood comments, “so I envy any teacher who has the chance to engage students by using his Civil War images.”

Peter Wood was born in St. Louis, spent his childhood summers in coastal Maine, and now lives in Longmont, Colorado. He is a graduate of Harvard and Oxford who taught American history at Duke from 1975 until his retirement in 2008. He is the author of several widely used books on early American slavery, Black Majority and Strange New Land, and he is the co-author of an important U.S. History survey text: Created Equal. In 1988, Wood worked with art scholar Karen Dalton on a path- breaking exhibition and book entitled Winslow Homer’s Images of Blacks: The Civil War and Reconstruction Years. He is the author of Weathering the Storm, a book about Homer’s masterpiece, “The Gulf Stream,” and his most recent volume is entitled Near Andersonville: Winslow Homer’s Civil War. Professor Wood has been a Rhodes Scholar and a Guggenheim Fellow, and in 2011 he received the Asher Distinguished Teaching Award of the American Historical Association.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Teacher Workshops

Work with other teachers and MFA educators to explore ways of enlivening the classroom using Museum objects as teaching tools. Our complimentary workshops typically feature a slide presentation by a curator, followed by time in the galleries with Gallery Instructors. Online registration is required, at least 24 hours before the workshop date. There is a non-refundable processing fee of $2.50 per teacher per workshop.

To register, visit www.mfa.org/programs/school-programs, or for more information, email Suzi Fonda at sfonda@mfa.org. Workshop topics for 2013-2014 are:

• Art of Asia: October 9, 2013, 4-7pm
• John Singer Sargent Watercolors: November 13, 2013, 4-7 pm
• Sacred Pages: Conversations about the Qur’an: December 11, 2013, 4-7 pm
• Ancient Legacy: January 8, 2014, 4-7 pm
• Audubon’s Birds, Audubon’s Words: February 12, 2014, 4-7 pm
• Art of Africa: Benin Bronze from the Lehman Collection: March 12, 2014, 4-7 pm
• Art, Writing and the Common Core: April 9, 2014, 4-7 pm
• A Sense of Place: May 14, 2014, 4-7 pm