Zimmerli Art Museum and You
Valeri Drach Weidmann
H.P. Mirror staff

With over 50,000 works of art, Highland Park has an internationally recognized art center right in its own backyard, at 71 Hamilton Street in New Brunswick. The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum of Rutgers University brings the world to you. It's cozy enough, with summer art camp for children, year round lectures and a Passport to Art family program that add depth to their worldly collections and exotic visiting exhibits.

The museum has internationally recognized strengths in modern and contemporary American Art; Russian and Soviet dissident art; French graphic art from 1825 to 1925; Japanese art and nineteenth and twentieth century Hungarian art. Other important collections include American stained glass design and original illustrations from children's literature.

Featured Summer Exhibits

Through July there are two featured shows that represent the East and the West, the present and the nineteenth century.

“New Narratives: Contemporary Art from India” is a collection of 52 paintings, sculptures, photographs, and video installations from 15 working artists. It is part of a series of exhibits from the South Asian Regional Initiative that is bringing work to our region, according to curator Jeffrey Wechsler.

"The work represented is from contemporary, working artists who are still living in India," Wechsler said. "It is cutting edge, up to the minute art and we are the right venue for it."

The 19th Century Galleries, through June 1, feature “Honore Daumier and La Maison Aaubert: Political and Social Satire in Paris.” This exhibition includes the portrait caricature series The Celebrities of the Juste-Milieu, considered Daumier's most subversive works. The 36 painted clay busts of politicians and personalities of the July Monarchy were created from the 1840s to the 1860s. The Zimmerli is the only American museum to own a complete set of this series.

If you are in the mood for panoramic vistas created by graphic artists, you can visit “From Here to the Horizon: American Landscape Prints from Whistler to Celmins,” in the David and Ruth Robinson Eisenberg Gallery through July 31. The early twentieth century prints include artists Childe Hassam, Blanche Lazzell, Grant Wood and others. If you can't get away this summer, you might enjoy these far away places both real and invented.

Russian dance is explored in two exhibits through July 31. “Art for the Dance: Russian Costume and Stage Designs from the Riabov Collection” includes Russian art created for theater and dance, beginning with the Ballet Russes which broke ground for later avant-garde theater productions.

“Russian Dance: Selections from the Donation of Herbert and Ruth Schimmel” allows an inside look into the workings of a ballet. Rare books, programs, journals, photography and artwork explore twentieth century Russian dance. Illustrated albums feature sensual stage and costume designs and you can also see original programs from the famous Ballets Russes.

“Paintings for the Grave: The Early Works of Boris Sveshnikov” features the works of the artist’s imprisonment in a Gulag labor camp between 1940 and 1961, when he was arrested due to false allegations. Let's just say these works are pretty intense.

And if you ever wondered how a picture book is planned, “Ways and Means: How Illustrators Plan a Picture Book” will give you an idea with examples of thumbnail sketches, storyboards, dummy books, character studies and more through July 20th.

The museum will be closed during the month of August.

Like Trains and Taxis performs at the "Zimmerli After Hours" evening concert series. Photo by Aparna.