down town chapel hill
On Display
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n the recently released book “Look Close, Think Far: Art at the Ackland,” Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs Peter Nisbet highlights 238 pieces of the 20,000+ works of art in the Ackland’s collection. We asked him for an even more impossible task – pick just three can’t-miss works at the museum. And when you’re done browsing, find the book in the gift shop.
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Let me begin by highlighting a work from the 283 that are illustrated and discussed in our new publication. This gorgeous bowl, from the Byzantine period and almost 1,000 years old, is on view in our gallery for ancient and early European art but often overlooked. The decoration, scratched into the pale surface, shows a lively image of a raptor (perhaps a falcon) surrounded by leaves and chevrons that seem to rotate around it.
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Choosing just 283 works out of around 20,000 was agony, and many favorites fell by the wayside – such as this extraordinary staff finial by an unknown artist from southeastern Africa around the end of the 19th century, on view in our gallery for African art. The meaning of the baboon figure on two male heads with signs of Zulu authority is not clear, but the quality of the sculpture is evident.
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chapelhillmagazine.com
December 2022
Although the book offers a cross section through our world-renowned collection of art from all periods and cultures, it is in a sense already out of date, as we have continued to add major works of art since the content deadline passed a couple of years ago. One example recently put on view in our gallery for 19th century art is this powerful, small 1865 painting by the greatest American painter of the period, Winslow Homer.
1 Unidentified artist, Byzantine, Sgraffito Bowl with Raptor, 12th century CE, earthenware and glaze, 10 1/16 × 3 in. (25.6 × 7.6 cm). Gift of Charles Millard, 2018.46.3. Ackland Art Museum. 2 Baboon Master, Tsonga, South African, late 19th/early 20th century, Staff with Finial of a Baboon on Two Male Heads (detail), late 19th century, wood, 37 × 3 7/8 in. (94 × 9.8 cm). The William A. Whitaker Foundation Art Fund, 2019.36. Ackland Art Museum. 3 Winslow Homer, American, 1836-1910, Old Woman Gathering Brush, 1865, oil on canvas, canvas: 17 × 13 1/8 in. (43.2 × 33.3 cm) frame: 23 1/2 × 19 1/2 in. (59.7 × 49.5 cm). The Peck Collection, 2022.17.1. Ackland Art Museum.