Selected Exhibitions

The Arts Students League,  July 21-August 23, 2022

To Live is to Paint: Wilhelmina Weber Furlong, Dorothy Dehner and American Modernism (2022) explores the creative exchange between post-impressionist painter Wilhelmina Weber Furlong and modernist sculptor Dorothy Dehner. Centering the work of Dehner and Furlong within the development of interwar modernism, the exhibition follows Furlong’s and Dehner’s artistic influences from their extensive travels to their close friendships throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The two artists met at the Art Students League in 1925. Both women were at the forefront of developments in American abstract painting, but their support for their husbands’ artistic careers made it difficult for them to gain visibility for their own work. Dehner finally achieved recognition following her 1965 retrospective at the Jewish Museum, although her accomplishments have typically been overshadowed by her husband David Smith’s acclaim. Furlong’s contributions to the experiments in abstraction that were percolating between 1913 and 1935 have remained largely unrecognized until now.

Hollis Taggart, November 18-December 31, 2021

The first major exhibition about the trailblazing collector and gallerist Martha Jackson to take place in New York, Wild and Brilliant brings together the work of many young, emerging artists who would go on to become internationally renowned household names, including Grace Hartigan, Alfred Jensen, Willem de Kooning, Louise Nevelson, and Bob Thompson as well as archival materials from the Martha Jackson Gallery Archives at the University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery.

Hollis Taggart, January 14-February 27, 2021

Remnant Romance: Environmental Works by Idelle Weber and Aurora Robson pairs two forward-thinking women artists who examine trash, the waste stream, and the ecological impact of consumption. Using different mediums and creating at distinct points in history, Weber and Robson challenge the viewer to think more deeply about the materials we throw away.

The Art Students League, October 5-November 15, 2018

A survey of Bruce Dorfman’s paintings and mixed media constructions from the 1960s through the present, which inaugurated the Art Students League’s renovated lobby gallery.

The Art Students League of New York, October 18-November 1, 2018

A three-venue exhibition in collaboration with Hirschl & Adler Galleries and 511 Projects, The Masters celebrates the wide-reaching contribution of Art Students League teachers and students to the development of American art

The Art Students League of New York, November 7 – December 4, 2017

A Landmark Exhibition celebrated the 125th anniversary of the Art Students League’s French-Renaissance style building and its expansive ground floor Vanderbilt Gallery, which was designed by architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh and opened in 1892.During the late 19th Century, the League was a major venue for exhibitions and played a role in the introduction of Impressionism to New York City through the influence of instructors James Carroll Beckwith, William Merritt Chase, Julian Alden Weir, and John Henry Twachtman. A timeline structure featured photographs, archival documents, and paintings from the League’s permanent collection to chronicle the cultural history of the building.

The Art Students League of New York, June 19 – July 25, 2015; Anderson Gallery, University at Buffalo, April 2-August 7, 2016

On the Front Lines examined the impact of the GI Bill on the development of post-war American art. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, thousands of veterans, including Robert Rauschenberg, Al Held, Paul Jenkins, Knox Martin, and Alfred Leslie enrolled at the League with the support of the GI Bill, reinvigorating the school and its artistic community.

The Art Students League of New York, September 30 – November 1, 2013

Organized by the Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution, Six Degrees of Peggy Bacon uses the six degrees of separation social networking theory to trace the artistic circles surrounding Art Students League trained graphic artist and caricaturist Peggy Bacon. The Art Students League presentation of the exhibition paired Bacon’s artwork with photographs, letters, sketches, and other archival gems from the Archives of American Art collections.