In conjunction with the current Graphic Novel Exhibition Suite, the NIU Art Museum has announced two new exhibitions opening with a reception from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Thursday, April 5, and several upcoming events.
- The Golden Age of Wordless Novels and Artist Illustrated Books, 1917-1951, explores a peak revival period of relief printmaking which enabled artists of Europe and North America to create powerful and far-reaching works of art in book form.
- The Graphic Novel: An Interpretive History, traces the origins of sequential visual narrative from prehistoric cave painting through illuminated medieval manuscripts onward. These two exhibitions were organized by NIU students from Museum Exhibitions and Interpretation, a graduate-level Museum Studies course.
- Wednesday, April 18, noon to 1 p.m. Watson Hall 110, Perspective Games in 19th-century French Word/image Narrative. A brown-bag lecture by foreign languages professor Philippe Willems.
- Wednesday, April 18, 5 p.m., Altgeld Hall 315, Wordless Novels: The Original Graphic Novels, a lecture by David A. Berona, dean, Library and Academic Support Services, Plymouth State University, New Hampshire.
- Tuesday, April 24, 12:10 p.m., and 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 15, NIU Art Museum (first floor, west end of Altgeld Hall), Francisco Goya: Satirical Caprices, a curator’s gallery talk with Peter Olson and Heather Green.
- Tuesday, May 15, 6 p.m., Altgeld Hall 315, Rudolphe Töpffer and the Birth of the Comic Strip – 1820s-1850s, a lecture by Willems.
Located on the west-end first floor of Altgeld Hall, the galleries are open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and by appointment for group tours.
Exhibitions and lectures are free; donations are appreciated.
Pay parking is available in the visitor’s lot on Carroll Avenue and at metered spots in front of Altgeld Hall. Free parking is available Saturdays and during receptions and visiting artist lectures in the lot northeast of Gilbert and College Drives.
The exhibition is sponsored in part by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; the Friends of the NIU Art Museum; and the Dean’s Circle of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, NIU Foundation.
Call (815) 753-1936 for more information.
