Letter from the Director, October 2026

As much as we all love the summer in Maine, there’s something truly special about fall. Apart from the various pleasures of the season, we at the BCMA particularly enjoy the return of crowds of students to the museum’s classroom and our galleries. Their enthusiasm is evident whenever they enter our doors, but it’s perhaps most visible during “Student Night at the Museum,” an event held near the beginning of each semester. This fall it drew just over 800 students—a record turnout representing nearly half of the students currently on campus. The final weekend of September witnessed a similar burst of activity, with two overlapping events: Bowdoin’s Homecoming and an international symposium organized by historians of American art. Throughout these two activities, our galleries were abuzz with conversations between current students, alums, scholars, and members of the broader public.

As you can see in what follows in this Newsletter, we’ve opened a pair of exhibitions (Healing in Apartheid South Africa and What Did They Wear?), which will keep the energy level high in the weeks to come. We’ll also be hosting a lecture by the important contemporary artist Adebunmi Gbadebo (October 7 at 5 PM), new iterations of the ever-popular “Music at the Museum” series with the pianist George Lopez (October 15 at Noon and 5 PM), a poetry reading in the galleries (October 20 at Noon), and a lecture by a visiting scholar speaking on the issues raised in Healing in Apartheid South Africa (October 22 at 5 PM). Finally, at the very end of the month, the museum will be displaying a copy of the “Dunlap Broadside,” one of just 26 surviving copies of the document printed on July 4, 1776, to broadcast the words of the Declaration of Independence (October 30-31). Note that while all events are free of charge, seating for some of them is limited, which requires us to ask for advance registration. Please consult our Events page for more information on all of these. We hope to see you soon in our galleries!

Stephen Perkinson
Professor of Art History and Interim Director, Bowdoin College Museum of Art

This letter from the director accompanied the Museum's October 2026 e-bulletin newsletter.