News

Name and hometown?I go by Isabel, but my friends call me Izzy too. I am from about 30 minutes from Davidson just west of Charlotte. Class year and major/minor?I am a first-year planning on majoring in Math, but I am deciding between a Data Sciences, Economics, or Communication Studies minor.  Did you do anything this summer or during quarantine related to the arts?This summer I did art in the form of creative writing and making several paintings to hang on the walls of my dorm here. Why were you interested in interning with the galleries?I have always loved art, but...

Thanks to the generosity of John Andrew Macmahon ‘95, the Van Every/Smith Galleries will acquire a prominent work of art for the college's collection. Ntozakhe II, Parktown, by South African artist-activist Zanele Muholi, is part of the artist's highly-acclaimed series, Somnyama Ngonyama, currently on view at the Tate Modern, UK. At Davidson College, the artwork was recently installed at the E. Craig Wall Jr. Academic Center in anticipation of the return of students in January 2021. Zanele Muholi, Ntozakhe II, Parktown, from the Somnyama Ngonyama series, 2016, Photography, 119.5 x 85.75 in. In Muholi’s self-portrait series, Somnyama Ngonyama, translated from...

RFK Funeral Train, 196816.875 x 20.875 x 1.25 in.Cibachrome printGift of John Andrew MacMahon, Class of 1995 Paul Fusco, a world traveler and photojournalist, portrayed a nation in mourning through his critically acclaimed photo-book, RFK Funeral Train. Paul Fusco died July 15, 2020 at the age of 89, at an assisted-living facility in San Anselmo, California. In the heydays of his photojournalist life, Fusco was a staff photographer for Look magazine, primary competitor of Life magazine during the 1960s. The photo-documentation of RFK Funeral Train came to fruition on a single day in 1968, when Fusco was assigned a last-minute...

Ron Kowalke (American, b. 1936)Inferno, 1970Gift of Sanford R. Robertson Born in 1936, Ron Kowalke is an American painter, printmaker, sculptor, and educator. After attending the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago, he received his BA from Rockford University in 1959. By 1960, he went on to receive an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Kowalke taught alongside his practice at Northern Illinois University, Swain School of Design before joining the faculty of University of Hawaii. His work is part of prestigious permanent collections across the continent, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Boston Public Library,...

Two weeks ago, Elizabeth Harry (gallery and collection coordinator) and I had the privilege to meet with Aubrey Parks '22 and Dr. Dan Boye, a physics professor here at Davidson, to participate in a presentation on volumetric x-ray imaging with Digitome software. The Van Every/Smith Galleries have consulted with the physics department a handful of times over the years to examine artworks, such as this painting by Frank Vincent DuMond. This time, we examined Untitled (Village on Lake), Continental School to verify suspected old repairs or in-painting and to potentially reveal an underpainting. Dr. Boye and Aubrey Parks '22 use...