Written by: Griffin Green – Education Assistant

With our last article having been posted on Nov 7, 2019, it goes without saying that things have been a little quiet here on the DOMA Insider blog. The COVID-19 pandemic has been relentless, but so are we here at the David Owsley Museum of Art, and as a result we are slowly but surely updating all the things that have fallen to the wayside over the past two years – like this student-produced blog!

When it comes to museum protocols regarding the pandemic, much remains the same in terms of mitigating transmission. Masks are still required by all guests and employees inside of the building and social distancing is encouraged. However, there is much that the museum has done to ensure that such restrictions do not act as barriers to guests’ viewing experiences as well.

For example, DOMA has successfully offered a wealth of online resources over the past few years, including:

  • DOMA’s first ever Virtual Museum Experience, a browser-based digital platform for Fall 2020’s exhibition titled 20/20: Twenty Women Artists of the 20th Century. Featuring 360 degrees gallery views and a number of close-looking videos, this compact yet informative display allowed us as a museum to begin the first steps towards adapting to a world defined by lockdowns and immobility
  • Summer 2021’s Art in Bloom event, featuring Morgan Everhart’s companion exhibition titled Flesh in Bloom. An online showcasing of Everhart’s work features a number of her stunningly vibrant floral compositions digitally imposed upon our gallery space for visitors to enjoy.
Arrangement done by Audrey Scott of the Normandy Flower Shop in response to the Finial Figure

When not working on digital resources, the museum stayed busy with a number of other endeavors as well:

  • Through the generosity of donor Ann M. Stack, DOMA was fortunate enough to receive a three-volume publication of the paintings found within the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican City, with color plates details reproduced at actual size. Information on these books can be found here.
  • Conservation efforts continue on in the background for several paintings within our collection, including Childe Hassam’s Entrance to the Grotto, Isle of Shoals (1902) and Alfred Leslie’s Pythoness (1959). More on that can be found in our Spring 2021 newsletter here.
  • DOMA’s paper archive collection has recently been surveyed and catalogued digitally for the first time, with a list of exhibition materials having been created which spans from 1918—1988. The finding aid for that archival list can be found here.

As for exhibitions, DOMA has (naturally) completed a number of them since Fall 2019, including:

  • 20/20: Twenty Women Artists of the 20th Century (Fall 2020)
  • POP Power from Warhol to Koons: Masterworks from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation (Spring 2021)
  • Morgan Everhart: Flesh in Bloom (Summer 2021)
  • The Sistine Chapel Trilogy (Summer 2021)
  • African American Art at the David Owsley Museum of Art: Past, Present, and Future (Fall 2021)
  • Memories & Inspiration: The Kerry and C. Betty Davis Collection of African American Art (Fall 2021)

The listings for these exhibitions along with additional resources pertaining to these exhibits can be found here.

Last but not least, DOMA is gearing up for its latest exhibition, Spring 2022’s Body Language: The Art of Larry Day. An artist with a decades long career in abstraction, figuration, and cityscapes, Larry Day was known as “the Dean of Philadelphia Painters,” with a number of his monumental works (as well as a number of his drawings) to be put on display from February 24—May 21, 2022. More information on this upcoming exhibit can be found here. We hope to see you there!

As always, thank you for reading DOMA Insider, especially after such a long dormancy. There will be plenty more to come!