Hunterdon Art Museum

The Hunterdon Art Museum is an educational resource with programs for all ages. The Museum's education department offers opportunities to explore and experience Art in many forms. Beginning with programs for the very young and continuing through adulthood, the Museum annually offers workshops and classes that support lifelong learning. In the summer, hundreds of children participate in the Museum's Art camps. Subjects range from painting and drawing to video production, fashion design, animation, and much more. For more than twenty five years ham has offered classes for adults with developmental disabilities and has filled a need in the community with this important program. Working with nearly thirty schools for almost three decades, the Museum has given tens of thousands of students the opportunity to exhibit their artwork and participate in workshops through our young artists showcase.

The museums exhibitions have garnered a reputation for their high qualilty and interesting subject matter. From group shows that investigate trends in contemporary Art to one-person exhibitions that explore personal journeys, the Museum brings extraordinary artwork to our region with approximately thirteen exhibitions annually. Here are examples from fy23: maxwell mustardo: dish-oriented was a solo show of the unique and inventive work of mustardo whose witty play on classical ceramics delighted our audience. The exhibition rina banerjee: blemish, in deep pink everything begins explores the work of banerjee, who has had solo exhibitions throughout the world. Found objects in her installations and imagery in her paintings and drawings combine western and eastern cultures, speaking to colonialism and the diaspora. Selections from the collection provided an opportunity for the Museum to share with the public objects from our collection that concentrates on works on paper from the 1950s to the present. A solo show of the work of fran shalom focused on the artists paintings. An abstract painter, shalom explores playful shapes and bright, cartoony colors to reveal a pop sensibility. Thread hijace, a group show curated by mary birmingham, brought together the work of six artists who use thread as an artmaking material and take it in new and unexpected directions. Using thread to draw lines, compose shapes, record gestures or join elements together they challenge the conventional boundaries of drawing, painting, collage and printmaking. A second show highlighting thread as an Art material, was a site specific installation by amie adelman who changed our perception of space by running thread in a wave pattern from wall to wall in our gallery. The museums annual members show was a strong reminder of the museums talented membership. Lewis wexler, owner of wexler gallery of philadelphia and new york, juried this show that incorporated contemporary paintings, prints, photographs, and sculpture. A solo show of the beautiful drawings of cristina de gennaro emphasized the artists exquisite mastery of drawing with large scale depictions of landscape. She wrote, the serpentine forms in my drawings capture the transition from a state of growth to one of dissolution, and yet i find these images of decay and decomposition to be filled with movement, pattern, grace, and beauty, much like my aging body. As such, the drawings explore tensions between disorder and order, complexity and pattern, chaos and beauty. The portrait of the artist, a group show focused on the work of seven accomplished artists, providied us with intimate and innovative views of artistic identity. A solo show by tricia zimic titled sins and virtues used porcelain depictions of animals to illustrate various scenarios of greed, envy, gluttony, etc. Liz mitchells site specific installation of hanging paper boats represented a way for the artist to respond to the pandemic by creating boats that would be released on water once the virus had lessened and it was safe to be together again. As a Museum that has explored contemporary ceramics in numerous exhibitions, we were excited to initiate claybash, a juried triennial ceramics exhibition. Jennifer martin, executive director of the clay studio, philadelphia, was the juror. The show sought lively and interesting interpretations of clay as material and idea and brought together work by ceramic artists from across the country. Finally, planetaria, a solo show by artist and poet moncial ong leveraged the language of astronomy to explore the precarious territories of motherhood, women in science, and diaspora identity. In addition to the above rotating exhibitions, sculptures by tom otterness, toshiko takaezu and noriko sakayama are located on the museums terrace and are accessible to the public 24/7.