Exhibits

Current Exhibit

Spring, 2020
Second Floor Gallery, Hawthorne-Longfellow Library

Maine’s complicated road to statehood culminated on March 15, 1820, when it became the twenty-third state. Admitted as a free state in a bargain to allow slavery’s extension to Missouri, Maine’s early years were shaped by national party politics, tension between farmers and merchants, and competing visions of who constituted the people of Maine. The State of Maine uses rare books, political tracts, maps, and other materials to explore the unexpected and familiar narratives that propelled statehood, and considers Bowdoin’s unique role in that journey.

Past Exhibits

Tension and Tenacity: Africana Studies at 50 — 2019 marks five decades of the Africana Studies program, the African American Society, and the John Brown Russwurm Center at Bowdoin College. Culled from the College Archives’ collections, Tension/Tenacity seeks to consider the programs’ strengths and struggles while highlighting the people who have championed their existence. (Fall 2019)

Interwoven: The Lives and Works of Martha Hall — For fiber and book artist Martha Hall (1949–2003), making art was a means of making sense of her world, including her extended battle with cancer. In this exploration of Hall’s archive, engage with her creative expressions as the tools she used to build powerful narratives to establish identity and community. (Spring 2019)

Four hundred years of scientific tracts and book arts illustrate how artists, scientists, and thinkers have interpreted the most basic, and most mysterious, phenomenon: color (Spring 2018)

An exploration of how typography, illustration, printing, binding, and other physical aspects of the book bear witness to cultural, social and historical innovation (Fall 2017)