Fall 2026
Friday, September 25 – Friday, November 20
Golden Age of American Illustration Exhibition
Leech Gallery
This exhibition is curated by Zhiting Huang ’26 (English: Literature) and explores the rich history of American illustration during its so-called “Golden Age,” a period spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Featuring works by prominent illustrators and drawn from the Lawrence University Art Collection, the exhibition examines how illustration shaped popular culture, publishing, advertising, and visual storytelling before the proliferation of photography and digital media.
Ellen Mahaffy, photography
Hoffmaster Gallery
In her artist’s statement, photographer Ellen Mahaffy writes: “What is loss? What is memory? How does one live their life? I left my father. Now I am left with what he left behind.” Mahaffy’s work centers on the lives of her father and grandfather, family archives, memory, loss, and the process of reckoning with a complicated family history through photographs, artifacts, audio recordings, and text. The work combines documentary and autobiographical approaches to explore what remains after a life unravels and how personal narratives are constructed from fragmentary artifacts. Mahaffy is a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire teaching visual communication and photography for the Department of Communication and Journalism.
Edward Penfield, Harper's March, color lithograph, 1896, Lawrence University Art Collection, 2018.03.89
The Lawrence University Art Collection
Kohler Gallery
This exhibition presents selections from the Lawrence University Art Collection curated by Lucy Jones ’27 (Art History) as part of her work as a Lawrence University Research Fellow during Summer 2026. Building upon the successful year-long permanent collection initiative introduced in 2025–26, the exhibition highlights the diversity and strengths of the collection while creating connections to coursework across the university. This exhibition of works from the will remain on view during most of the academic year, from September to May. Through thematic groupings and new interpretations, the exhibition encourages students, faculty, staff, and visitors to engage more deeply with works that are not often seen in the gallery spaces. The exhibition will remain on view throughout the academic year, with periodic rotations to protect light-sensitive works and introduce new objects.
Hilla Rebay, Cadenza, Oil, 1948, Lawrence University Art Collection, 52.002
Winter 2027
Friday, January 15 – Friday, March 12
Warrington Colescott: The History of Printmaking
Leech Gallery
This exhibition showcases The History of Printmaking, perhaps the best-known series of work by renowned Wisconsin artist Warrington Colescott. Colescott used satire, technical innovation, and historical references to expand the possibilities of contemporary printmaking. In this series, he imagines critical moments in the history of printmaking, in his signature darkly humorous style. The exhibition is presented in conjunction with Wisconsin Impressions 2027, which is a statewide initiative dedicated to advancing printmaking, exhibitions, and education across Wisconsin’s museums, galleries, and academic institutions organized by artist Todd Mrozinski and collector John Shannon.
Jayne Reid Jackson, printmaking
Hoffmaster Gallery
Printmaker Jayne Reid Jackson concentrates on intaglio techniques that require drawing and painting skills, and she particularly favors the mezzotint process. Jackson uses still life as a vehicle to study how simple objects can create mystery and visual poetry.
Warrington Colescott, History of Printmaking: Frontispiece, soft-ground etching and aquatint, 1981, Lawrence University Art Collection, 96.013.19
Spring 2027
Friday, April 2 – Friday, May 14
Bouguereau and Beaux-Arts
Leech Gallery
Centered on William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s Two Sisters, one of the most significant works in the Lawrence University Art Collection, and Hector d'Espouy’s Fragments d'Architecture Antique, this exhibition examines the academic traditions of the French Beaux-Arts system and their influence on nineteenth-century art. Through these works from the permanent collection and related interpretive materials, the exhibition explores themes of artistic training, technical mastery, idealized beauty, and the institutional structures that shaped artistic production.
Ciel Skål, drawing
Hoffmaster Gallery
Ciel Skål is a Madison-based artist whose mixed-media works explore how our environment shapes us. Drawing upon her background in art history, behavioral research, and archaeological illustration, Skål creates large-scale works using ink, watercolor, and graphite that consider how the places we inhabit shape our sense of belonging. Her process often begins by combining ink with water collected from geographically significant locations. She then allows the materials to flow unpredictably across the paper before drawing faceless figures out of these organic forms. Rooted in her own experiences of displacement, loss, and the search for home, Skål’s work considers both the physical and emotional meanings we attach to place and the traces that people and environments leave upon one another. The exhibition will be particularly relevant to courses in studio art, art history, environmental studies, psychology, anthropology, and museum studies.
William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Two Sisters, 1901, Oil on canvas, Lawrence University Art Collection, 77.011
2027 Senior Art Show
May 28 – June 19
Leech, Hoffmaster, and Kohler Galleries
The annual exhibition of artwork by Lawrence University’s senior studio art majors.