Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Attic Red-Figure Hydria (Kalpis), with the North Wind, Boreas Abducting Oreithyia (detail) by the Niobid Painter.

Per Kirkeby, Danish, born 1938. Earthquake, 1983, (detail), oil on canvas

Sense of Scale, Measure by Color: Art, Science, and Mathematics of Planet Earth

April 04, 2013 - June 02, 2013
Focus Gallery

This exhibition celebrates visual splendors of the natural world, focusing on how earth scientists and mathematicians use color and scale to measure and interpret geological and oceanographic processes. As a pendant exhibition to Per Kirkeby: Paintings and Sculpture, this show generates compelling synergies between the perspectives of arts and sciences.

Unity and Fragmentation: Selections from the Permanent Collection

March 29, 2013 - June 02, 2013
Halford Gallery

This installation spans many eras and diverse media as it invites visitors to contemplate the dialectic of the whole and its parts

Per Kirkeby: Paintings and Sculpture

March 26, 2013 - July 14, 2013
Bowdoin Gallery

The exhibition introduces to American audiences Danish artist Per Kirkeby (born 1938), one of Europe's most celebrated contemporary artists. The artist's roles as geologist, filmmaker, architect, writer, and poet are reflected in this survey of approximately 45 works. Kirkeby's paintings and sculptures are constantly in flux, maintaining a dialogue between art and science. Organized by the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., this is Per Kirkeby's first American retrospective. After the Phillips Collection, Bowdoin is the only other venue hosting this important show.

Transformative Gestures: Paintings of the Renaissance

March 12, 2013 - June 02, 2013
Becker Gallery

European paintings of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries tell stories of love, transgression, sacrifice, and redemption that are often based on biblical or mythological narratives, and on the legends of the Christian saints. While the paintings are silent, they speak to the viewer through their figures' expressive hand movements. It is within the power of those gestures to transform a man into a god, a sinner into a believer, a nymph into a bay laurel tree.

Simply Divine: Gods and Demigods in the Ancient Mediterranean

March 08, 2013 - June 02, 2013
Center Gallery

The exhibition explores the nature of divinity in the Ancient Mediterranean, the relationships between gods and the realms they control. The installation organizes around select realms (Eros and Love, Fertility and Nature) and explores the myths and iconography that connect these spheres of divinity.

Upcoming Exhibitions

Maurice Prendergast: By the Sea

June 29, 2013 - October 13, 2013
Bernard and Barbro Osher Gallery

This is the first exhibition to present the seaside work of the Post-Impressionist painter Maurice Prendergast (1858-1924), whose sophisticated and sensitive renderings of beaches, coves, and bathers were often inspired by his visits to Maine. The exhibition brings together works with identifiable locations in Maine and elsewhere, with paintings whose "place" is not defined by geography but by their context in the grand traditions of western art.

more Upcoming Exhibitions

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Past Upcoming

Museum News

April 29, 2013 - NEWS - OTHER

Per Kirkeby: Paintings and Sculpture in the Press

April 24, 2013 - NEWS - LECTURE

Museum Members' Tour, "Per Kirkeby: Paintings and Sculpture" on April 25

April 17, 2013 - NEWS - LECTURE

Gallery Talk on “Sense of Scale, Measure by Color: Art, Science, and Mathematics of Planet Earth” on Sunday

April 11, 2013 - NEWS - LECTURE

"Per Kirkeby's Heavy Metal" lecture on Thursday evening

more News

Museum Events

Real/Ideal: Transformations in Nineteenth-century Painting

January 15, 2013 | 10:00 AM
Museum of Art, Shaw Ruddock Gallery

The Fixed Image: History and Process in American Photography

January 22, 2013 | 10:00 AM
Museum of Art, Becker Gallery

Reading Prints: David Becker's Legacy at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art

January 31, 2013 | 3:30 PM
Visual Arts Center, Kresge Auditorium

Museum of Art Open House

January 31, 2013 | 5:00 PM
Museum of Art, Pavilion

Symposium: Reading Prints: David P. Becker's Legacy at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art

February 1, 2013 | 10:00 AM
Museum of Art, Halford Gallery

Family Saturday at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art

February 2, 2013 | 10:00 AM
Museum of Art, Pavilion

Lecture:An Enchanted Evening with the Spirits of Japanese Dance and Art

February 28, 2013 | 7:00 PM
Visual Arts Center, Kresge Auditorium

Family Saturday at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art

March 2, 2013 | 10:00 AM
Museum of Art, Pavilion

Per Kirkeby: Paintings and Sculpture

March 26, 2013 | 10:00 AM
Museum of Art, Boyd Gallery

Unity and Fragmentation

April 4, 2013 | 10:00 AM
Museum of Art, Bernard & Barbro Osher Gallery

Lecture:Per Kirkeby: Paintings and Sculpture

April 4, 2013 | 4:30 PM
Visual Arts Center, Kresge Auditorium

Lecture:Compass Points: Art, Science and the Arctic

April 10, 2013 | 4:15 PM
Visual Arts Center, Beam Classroom

Lecture:Mathematics and the Melting Polar Ice Caps

April 12, 2013 | 6:00 PM
Visual Arts Center, Kresge Auditorium

Lecture:Per Kirkeby's Heavy Metal

April 18, 2013 | 7:00 PM
Sills Hall, Smith Auditorium

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Museum Hours

Tuesday - Saturday: 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Thursday: 10:00 a.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Sunday: 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.

Closed on Mondays and national holidays.

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is open to the public free of charge, although donations are welcome. The Museum is wheelchair accessible through the Pavilion entrance. Bowdoin College Museum of Art is a member of The Maine Art Museum Trail

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