News & Events Curator to Give Talk on Russian Costume Design at Mead Art Museum Dec. 10

November 25, 2009
Contact: Bettina Jungen
Curator of Russian Art
413/542-8561

AMHERST, Mass.—On Thursday, December 10, at 4.30 p.m. at Amherst College’s Mead Art Museum, Bettina Jungen, the Thomas P. Whitney Class of 1937 Curator of Russian Art, will present a talk on the Mead’s current exhibition titled “The Silver Age Endured: Russian Costume Design at the Mead Art Museum.” More information about the exhibition is posted on the museum’s Web site: https://www.amherst.edu/museums/mead/programs/exhibitions/silverage.

The Mead’s costume designs by Bakst, Benois, Dobuzhinskii and other artists are rooted in the aesthetics of the Silver Age, although several of the displayed works were executed after the Revolution when these artists left Russia and settled in Europe or the United States. Since Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, the Western audience associated their opulent and imaginative stage settings with Russianness. In her talk, Jungen will shed light on particular designs created for drama, film and ballet and link them to the artists’ careers and their cultural context. She will also talk about the significance of these costume designs within the Mead’s Thomas P. Whitney ’37 Collection of Russian Art.

The Mead Art Museum houses the art collection of Amherst College, totaling more than 16,000 works. An accredited member of the American Association of Museums, the Mead participates in Museums10, a regional cultural collaboration. During the academic term, the museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to midnight and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday. For more information, please visit the museum’s Web site, www.amherst/museums/mead, or call 413/542-2335. 

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