Publications
Download Jennifer Trausch brochure
Touching Ground:Finding the American South 20x24 Polaroids by Jennifer Trausch
From 2006 to 2011, large-format photographer Jennifer Trausch took the refrigerator-sized 20 x 24 inch Polaroid camera from the predictable, comfortable confines of its studio home out onto the winding roads of the rural American South. Led from town to town by word of mouth, instinct, and caprice, Trausch worked steadily to understand some of the South’s essential truths through the strange moments she happened across in each small place: at fairs, auctions, dances, bars, and rodeos; in homes and shacks, open fields, swamps, forests, dirt roads and highways. The massive, beautiful contact-print images that Trausch made in these myriad places show a conflicted South: hopeful and menacing, at rest and crackling with life, defeated and defiant.
The five-page exhibition brochure includes the artist’s statement, and sixteen thumbnail images of some of the forty-one works in the installation.
The exhibition was made possible by the Humana Foundation Endowment for American Art, which was established through the vision of Mr. William C. Ballard, Jr. View the exhibition brochure, Touching Ground.
Figures on Rocks at the Edge of the Sea, or The Coast at Etretat, 1867 Jehan-Georges Vibert (French, 1840–1902) oil on canvas Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Noah L. Butkin 2009.045.110
Breaking the Mold: The Legacy of the Noah L. and Muriel S. Butkin Collection of Nineteenth-Century French Art
Breaking the Mold celebrates two generous donors, Noah L. and Muriel S. Butkin, whose gifts established the Snite Museum’s collecting strength in nineteenth-century French academic art. Their philanthropic support extended to the Cleveland Museum of Art and Case Western Reserve University in addition to the University of Notre Dame.
At a time when other collectors were acquiring Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works, the Butkins purchased realist art. Alongside well-known artists, such as Jean-Léon Gérôme and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, they bought compelling works by lesser-known artists such as Léon-Augustin Lhermitte, Jules Breton, Alphonse Legros, Henri Gervex, and Théodule Ribot.
Breaking the Mold was edited by Gabriel P. Weisberg, professor of Art History, University of Minnesota. Additional authors include Kirsten Appleyard MA ’11, Heather Lemonedes, Sarah Sik ,and Janet Whitmore, with research assistance provided by Yvonne Weisberg.
The Breaking the Mold exhibition catalog was made possible by generous gifts from Mr. and Mrs. Thomas J. Lee ’59 and Mr. Ralph M. Hass ’39.
The soft cover catalog is distributed through the University of Washington Press at the retail price of $30 each. You can order copies from them by calling 1-800-537-5487 or from their website.
Download Snite Father Lindesmith Part 1 (7.37 MB PDF) and Snite Father Lindesmith Part 2 (9.57 MB PDF)
Father Lindesmith Collection
History Into Art and Anthropology
by Joanne Mack, Emerita, Curator of Native American Art
Father Eli Washington John Lindesmith served as Catholic chaplain at Fort Keogh, Montana Territory, where he interacted daily with infantry, cavalry, and Native American scouts— primarily Cheyenne. Over time, he amassed a collection of varied cultural materials with the intent to enlighten the public about the American West and its significance to US history. Outstanding aspects of Lindesmith’s collection are beadwork produced by the wives and sisters of Cheyenne scouts who, with their families, lived at the fort, as well as his documentation of each acquisition.
Curator Emerita of Native American Art, Snite Museum of Art and Professor Emerita of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, Joanne Mack organized the exhibition and is the lead author of its catalog.
Download Artist in Residence: Working Drawings by Luigi Gregori catalog (2.5MB PDF)
Artist in Residence:
Working Drawings by Luigi Gregori (1819-1896)
by Sophia Meyers, M.A., Art History, Notre Dame '10, Assoc. Prof. Robert Randolf Coleman, and Snite Museum Director Charles Loving
Snite Museum of Art – University of Notre Dame
This exhibition catalog brings to light new information about the Bolognese artist, Luigi Gregori, and his decorative programs for Sacred Heart Church (now the Basilica of the Sacred Heart), the Main Building, and St. Edward's Hall on the campus of Notre Dame.
Essays situate the artist's drawings within the context of art's academic training tradition and Purismo, a nineteenth-century religious art movement dedicated to the emulation of early Renaissance themes and styles.
Gregori's artistic contributions to the nascent academic community's early efforts to forge a strong visual identity for itself are examined in twenty-five catalog entries and numerous full-color illustrations.
Spiral bound hard copies of the catalog are available for purchase at the Visitors Service Desk in the atrium of the Museum for $15.
Download The Epic and the Intimate catalog (4.1MB PDF)
The Epic and the Intimate
French Drawings from the John D. Reilly Collection
Snite Museum of Art – University of Notre Dame
Before drawing gained its autonomy from painting, sculpture, and architecture in the twentieth century, it was regarded as a means of ordering reality. It was understood to be the fundamental basis of all creative activity. People learned to draw in order to be able to see, to analyze, and to know. The study of drawings therefore offers us insights into material culture and the history of ideas, including attitudes toward originality, authenticity, and virtuosity. As a physical manifestation of the principles that motivated France's Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which served as a model for academies across Europe and North America, French drawings are especially revelatory.
The Snite's holdings of French drawings comprise about five hundred works, over half of which come from the John D. Reilly '63 Collection of Old Master and Nineteenth-Century Drawings. The drawings discussed in this publication present a concise survey of the history of French drawings, from before the establishment of the Royal Academy in 1648 through the French Revolution in 1789 and subsequent political upheavals.
Download the IVAN MEŠTROVIĆ AT NOTRE DAME: Selected Campus Sculptures catalog (8.5MB PDF)
Ivan Mestrovic at Notre Dame
Selected Campus Sculptures
by Robert B. McCormick, Ph.D., Rev. James F. Flanigan, CSC, Diana C. Matthias, Charles R. Loving
Snite Museum of Art – University of Notre Dame
Modern interest in public sculpture at Notre Dame began, largely, when Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, invited Croatian sculptor IVAN MEŠTROVIĆ to campus in 1955. Hesburgh was encouraged in this endeavor by Rev. Anthony J. Lauck, CSC, founding director of the Snite Museum, chair of the art department, and a sculptor. MEŠTROVIĆ sculpted and taught at Notre Dame for seven years, until his death in 1962. His artistic legacy for this brief period can be seen at many campus locations, most of which are represented in this guidebook.
Download the Parallel Currents catalog (7.6 MB PDF)
Parallel Currents:
Highlights of the Ricardo Pau-Llosa Collection of Latin American Art
"The Museum staff and I take great pride and pleasure in exhibiting and publishing contemporary Latin American artworks from the collection of Ricardo Pau-Llosa. It is our desire that this publication illustrate how the art collection is central to Pau-Llosa’s professional endeavors as poet, critic, and curator—and integral to the extraordinary domestic space that he has created over the past thirty some years.
As Pau-Llosa explains:
I think of my home and collection as a tribute to memory theaters, those vanished wonders that historian Frances Yates elucidated in The Art of Memory (1966). Memory theaters resulted from an architectural conception of the imagination....the mind turned into a room filled with symbols, memory gridded and registered, so that the person entering the theater could glance upon the panoply and have refreshed all that he had forgotten he knew... Latin America’s art, so rooted in explorations of the Infinite, the Theatrical, and the Oneiric, is inseparable from a sense of memory and imagination as inhabitable spaces.
Soft-cover copies of the 98-page illustrated exhibition catalogue are available to current Friends of the Snite Museum at the $100 level or above, or those who join or upgrade to the $100 level or above. To become a member please contact the Friends Office at (574) 631-5516.
Download the Eclectic Antiquity catalog (2.9 MB PDF)
Eclectic Antiquity
the Classical Collection of the Snite Museum of Art
In the spirit of reaching the greater Notre Dame and South Bend community, the goal of these catalog entries is not only to present basic descriptions and vital statistics but also to use each object as a tool for engaging Museum visitors in the contemplation and appreciation of classical art, and as a key to examining one or more aspects of classical culture and contemporary scholarship. This is a teaching catalog, and it has been left to the initiative, creativity, and didactic goals of each of the contributors to choose and develop one or more issues or themes raised by each object. Most of these objects are presently in storage, but it is our hope that the publication of this catalog will help facilitate their further incorporation into the Museum’s permanent exhibition, perhaps even as a separate display of classical art.
Soft-cover copies of the 192-page illustrated exhibition catalogue are available to current Friends of the Snite Museum at the $60 level or above, or those who join or upgrade to the $60 level or above. To become a member please contact the Friends Office at (574) 631-5516.
Download the Bill Kremer, Sculptural Vessels catalog (4.5 MB PDF)
Sculptural Vessels
by Bill Kremer
This exhibition catalogue illustrates a show installed in the museum galleries from November 1-December 20, 2009. The images selected for the catalog were representative of the work displayed in the show Sculptural Vessels by Professor of Ceramics Bill Kremer in the Art, Art History, and Design Department at the University of Notre Dame. The Catalog out lines the mold process he used to produce the piece, detailed photographs of 13 pieces, and a retrospective highlighting the artist's career history.
"I have long admired the ceramic work of Prof. William Kremer and the excellent ceramics program that he has built at the University of Notre Dame. Professor Kremer’s Exhibition is an outstanding body of work highlighting both his mastery of the material and his understanding of form. His sculptures, often reminiscent of classical vessels and the human figure, possess a graceful elegance and nobility of presence. Kremer’s wide range of personal interests, such as art, music, teaching and sailing, all seem to be the impetus for these pieces. His approach to the clay is direct, knowledgeable and passionate. Of particular note is his ability to embody his sculptural vessels with a painterly quality, emphasizing grace and fluidity of line that only comes with years of experience and hard work. The Vessels are both Sculpture and Painting, each working to support the other. This powerful exhibition is a fitting testimony to his life and work, contributing a mature offering to the contemporary Ceramic Art movement."
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Randall Schmidt, Professor Emeritus
School of Art at Herberger College of Fine Art
Arizona State University
Soft-cover copies of the 52-page illustrated exhibition catalogue are available to current Friends of the Snite Museum at the $60 level or above, or those who join or upgrade to the $60 level or above. To become a member please contact the Friends Office at (574) 631-5516.
Para la Gente catalog, Part 2 (9.9 MB PDF) and Para la Gente catalog, Part 1 (2 MB PDF)
Para la Gente
Art, Politics, and Cultural Identity of the Taller de Gráfica Popular
Selected Works from the Charles S. Hayes Collection of Twentieth-Century Mexican Graphics
This exhibition catalogue illustrates a show installed in the museum galleries from July 12-September 20, 2009. The forty-three images selected for this exhibition were drawn from the Charles S. Hayes Collection of over 560-prints and survey the work by the Taller de Gráfica Popular, (or TGP), a workshop of politically engaged artists working in Mexico City from 1937 until about 1953, when they informally disbanded and were drawn into other programs, organizations or individual projects.
The images illustrate the issues of post-revolutionary Mexico's political and social upheaval and the TGP's direct and powerful style as well as their deep commitment and response to the agenda of political reforms that were part of the Cárdenista government in Mexico at that time.
Soft-cover copies of the 79-page illustrated exhibition catalogue are available to current Friends of the Snite Museum at the $60 level or above, or those who join or upgrade to the $60 level or above. To become a member please contact the Friends Office at 574- 631-5516.
Download Darkness and Light: Death and Beauty in Photography Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
Darkness and Light: Death and Beauty in Photography
by Stephen R. Moriarty
Snite Museum of Art – University of Notre Dame
The photographs in this catalog and exhibit were selected for their relationship to the concepts of death and beauty. The “death” photographs are not just depictions of lifeless bodies, although there are some of those, but are also images that illustrate fear, pain, alienation, loneliness, anger, sorrow, hatred, and the destruction of places, cultures or races. Similarly, the “beauty” photographs are not just depictions of attractive people or things, although there are some of those, too, but are also images that illustrate care, compassion, healing, growth, happiness, the preservation of places or cultures, grace, or love.
Another way to look at death and beauty in the context of photography is to think of darkness and light. Without some kind of light, it is impossible to make a photograph. At the same time, there must be some darkness to define the image.
Readers are invited to study the photographs and decide for themselves if an image represents light/beauty, darkness/death, or neither, or both.
Soft-cover copies are available to current Friends of the Snite Museum at the $60 level or above, or those who join or upgrade to the $60 level or above. To become a member please contact the Friends Office at (574) 631-5516.
Selected Works
Celebrating Twenty-five Years in the Snite Museum of Art: 1980–2005
Snite Museum of Art – University of Notre Dame
From its earliest years, the University of Notre Dame has understood the importance of the visual arts to the academy. In 1874 Notre Dame’s founder, Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., brought Vatican artist Luigi Gregori to campus. For the next seventeen years, Gregori beautified the school’s interiors—painting scenes on the interior of the Golden Dome and the Columbus murals within the Main Building.
Click on the PDF to the right to read more about the history of the Snite Museum. The 300-page publication includes color illustrations and brief essays of over 230 art objects in the permanent collection.
Soft-cover copies are available to current Friends of the Snite Museum at the $60 level or above, or those who join or upgrade to the $60 level or above. To become a member please contact the Friends Office at (574) 631-5516.
Download Selected Works catalog (9.5MB PDF) or open the publication online by clicking the image or here.
Download Passages of Light and Time, Part 1 (7.9 MB PDF) and Part 2 (3.9 MB PDF)
Passages of Light and Time
George Rickey's Life in Motion
The museum published this catalog of the George Rickey sculpture archive written by ND ’08 graduate art history intern Shannon Kephart, in conjunction with the "Abstraction in the Public Sphere: New Approaches," September 25–26, 2009 symposium.
The 91-page, color, illustrated, soft-cover publication includes images and text on the 20 George Rickey sculptures and maquettes promised as a future gift to the Snite Museum. Most of the 20 are on view in the entrance atrium of the museum, and its courtyard contains three large Rickey sculptures.
Soft-cover copies are available to current Friends of the Snite Museum at the $60 level or above, or those who join or upgrade to the $60 level or above. To become a member, please contact the Friends Office at (574) 631-5516.
Calendar of Events
Current Bi-Annual Calendar of Events
Snite Museum of Art—University of Notre Dame
The current Calendar of Events is a biannual report of the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame, highlighting recent acquisitions, articles from the director, museum exhibitions, education and public program updates, general museum news, and updates from the Friends of the Snite Museum.
Free paper copies are available in the museum entrances or mailed on request.
Download PDF files of past issues:
Jan-Aug 2010 | Aug-Dec 2010 |
Jan-Aug 2011 | Aug-Dec 2011 |
Jan-Aug 2012 | Aug-Dec 2012 |
Jan-Aug 2013