December e-bulletin

Bowdoin College Museum of Art bulletin 11.2025 header

A detail of an Old Master red chalk drawing of mythological figures

As the fall semester starts to wind down, we offer thanks to all the faculty and students who visited the Museum over the last several months. In addition, we wish to acknowledge the remarkable student interns and ambassadors who have contributed their talents to the Museum. Your involvement is vital to the Museum’s success! On Thursday, December 4 please join us at 4:30 pm in Beam Classroom for a lecture by Rice University art historian Sophie Crawford-Brown on using artistic expression to explore the attitudes of ancient Romans towards the natural world and the place of humans within it. The same day, stop by the annual Museum Shop Holiday Sale and reception. Also, be sure to see the new exhibition Josefina Auslender: Drawing Myself Free, curated by Casey Mesick Braun, which opens on Thursday, December 11. Finally, please note that the Museum will close to the public for three weeks for the holiday break and for floor maintenance in the upper-level galleries. We will be closed beginning Monday, December 22, and will re-open on Tuesday, January 13.

Have a great holiday season!

Anne Collins Goodyear & Frank H. Goodyear III

Co-Directors, Bowdoin College Museum of Art

exhibitions

Opening Soon

Josefina Auslender: Drawing Myself Free

This exhibition is the first-ever museum retrospective of drawings by Josefina Auslender, whose work in graphite, colored pencil, and ink, spanning decades and continents, reflects her enduring interest in building new worlds through the visual languages of abstraction and Surrealism.

A painting of women performing labor in a barren field

Opening Soon

Hung Liu: Happy and Gay

This exhibition features works by Hung Liu which adapt and subvert Maoist propaganda cartoons that were published during the 1950s. In the series, Liu revisits cartoons of her youth that were published in children's books and primers (known as xiaorenshu).

spotlight

An abstracted drawing of the back of a woman sitting on a window sill

BCMA Presents Landmark Josefina Auslender Retrospective and Hung Liu’s "Happy and Gay"

This winter, the Museum will present two exhibitions, Josefina Auslender: Drawing Myself Free and Hung Liu: Happy and Gay, which explore the power of art to interrogate history, memory, and personal experience—all filtered through the lens of immigration.

Winter Updates: Holiday Closures, New Exhibitions, and Second Floor Renovations

Learn about the Museum's 2025-26 holiday closure schedule, new exhibitions, and second floor gallery renovation plans.

news

A person gives a tour of an exhibition of medieval art

Sir Paul Ruddock H’19 on the Wyvern Collection at Bowdoin

A conversation with Sir Paul Ruddock H’19, Chair of the Wyvern Research Institute, offers insight into the significance of and opportunities presented by the arrival of the collection to Bowdoin.

A detail of a ceramic red snapper sculpture

Object of the Month

Edwin Kim ’27, Student Communications & Shop Assistant this past summer, discusses Red Snapper (2023) by Stephanie H. Shih.

calendar

Thursday, December 4, 2025

"From Fauna to Flora: Merging with Plants in Early Imperial Rome" with Sophie Crawford-Brown

4:30 p.m. | Beam Classroom, Visual Arts Center

Thursday, December 4, 2025

Museum Shop Holiday Sale Reception

5-7 p.m. | Bowdoin College Museum of Art Shop

Thursday, December 4 through Sunday, December 7, 2025

Museum Shop Holiday Sale

20% off Museum Shop purchases during open hours

Museum Hours

Tuesday-Saturday: 10:00 a.m.-5:00 pm | Thursday: 10:00 a.m.-8:30 p.m. | Sunday: 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. | Closed on Mondays and national holidays.

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is open to the public free of charge. The Museum is wheelchair accessible through the Pavilion entrance.

Bowdoin College Museum of Art | 9400 College Station | Brunswick, ME 04011 | 207.725.3275

artmuseum@bowdoin.edu bowdoin.edu/art-museum

Banner: Joachim von Sandrart, The Invention of Drawing (detail), 1606-1688, red chalk on paper. Bowdoin College Museum, Brunswick, Maine. Museum Purchase, James Phinney Baxter Fund, in memory of Professor Henry Johnson, 1932.36