Current and Upcoming Exhibitions

On-Line Exhibitions

Past Exhibitions
- Harnett Museum of Art
- Harnett Print Study Center
- Lora Robins Gallery

Current and Upcoming Exhibitions

Faces & Flowers: Painting on Lenox China
Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature
through June 28, 2009
In 1889, Walter Scott Lenox created the Ceramic Art Company whose ambition was to “strive for the perfection of American porcelain.” Lenox hired the best artisans specializing in clay bodies, firing techniques, design, and decorating, therefore producing the quality and creativity shown in his company’s wares and surpassing the best ceramics produced in England and Europe at the time. Featuring seventy objects drawn from public and private collections, the exhibition highlights the exquisite talents of Lenox’s china painters, showing a variety of work by the firm’s leading artists made for America’s foremost citizens, including orchid fancier Charles Roebling, grandson of the great bridge builder, and Newark industrialist Franklin Murphy, who was governor of New Jersey from 1902 to 1905.

Bruno Geyer (Austrian, active late 19th – early 20th century), Ceramic Art Company / Lenox China, Trenton, New Jersey, for Tiffany & Co., New York, Innocence, 1905-1906, painted with polychrome glazes on porcelain plate with raised gilt paste, 10 1/8 inches diameter, Private collection.

Model Warplanes: A Print Series by Malcolm Morley
Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art
through July 12, 2009
Born in 1931 in London, England, Morley’s troubling childhood memories of the blitzkrieg, the German air raids on Britain in 1940, influenced much of his work over his long career. His childhood passion for building model airplanes and ships became a common reference as he later realized that he preferred using found imagery (photographs and models) for his source material. Created in 2001, these prints feature images of cutouts for paper model airplanes — two based on World War One German fighter planes (Fokker DVII and Fokker DVIII) and two on American fighter planes used in World War Two (Corsair F4U and P-26 Pea Shooter). Generated from a set of his paintings based on hobbyist’s cards, the prints focus on the parts and decoration of the planes as presented in templates for paper models.

Transformations: Inuit Sculptures from the Collection
Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature
through November 15, 2009
Inuit sculpture is deeply rooted in tradition, steeped in storytelling, and offers a glimpse into the daily lives of the Inuit people. Highlighting the continuity and transformation of the art of the Inuit, the exhibition features a selection of contemporary Inuit sculptures, including objects from a recent gift of Virginia A. Arnold to the museum.

Osuitok Ipeelee (1923 -2005, Inuit, Cape Dorset [Kingait], Nunavut), Caribou, 1990, stone and caribou antler, Gift of Virginia A. Arnold, R2007.06.08. photograph © Taylor Dabney.

Victories, Orbs, & Angels: Byzantine Coins from the Collection
Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature
January 30 – June 27, 2010
On display are more than twenty-five coins from the museum’s permanent collection that demonstrate how Roman pagan motifs were adapted on bronze and gold Byzantine Christian coins from the beginning of the fifth century to the eleventh century. A highlight of the exhibition includes a precursor to Byzantine coinage minted during the reign of Eastern Roman emperor Theodosius II (reign 408-450). The front of the coin depicts a bust of the emperor, a common design on earlier Roman coins. The reverse portrays a personification of the capitol city Constantinople holding a carved statue of the figure of Victory standing on a globe, intended to symbolize the emperor’s world domination.

Theodosius II (Byzantine, 401-450), Solidus, circa 408-450, gold, 7/8 inch diameter, Gift of Dr. Pliny A. Price, R1980.16.014