Gold of the Caliphs: Medieval Islamic Coins from the Gary Leiser Collection of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art

February 18 – August 14, 2021

Study Gallery

This exhibition offers a fascinating glimpse into Islamic art, history, politics, economics, and religious beliefs as reflected in medieval Islamic coins minted in locations from Spain through Central Asia. Organized by guest curator Gary Leiser, the exhibition features approximately 150 of the more than 500 Islamic coins that Leiser donated to the Hallie Ford Museum of Art in 2017.

En Diálogo: Diego Rivera

9 de Abril de 2021 - 31 de Marzo de 2022

Galería Focus en la Mark y Galería Janeth Sponenburgh

In Dialogue: Diego Rivera

April 9, 2021 – March 31, 2022

Focus Gallery in the Mark and Janeth Sponenburgh Gallery

Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts Biennial: Part I and II

Part I: February 18 - April 24, 2021 | Part II: May 8 - August 14, 2021

Print Study Center

The Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts Biennial is a two-part exhibition that features a selection of contemporary prints created by Native and non-Native artists at the Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts on the Umatilla Reservation in northeastern Oregon.

Dale Chihuly: Cylinders, Macchia, and Venetians from the George R. Stroemple Collection

June 5 – August 28, 2021

Melvin Henderson-Rubio Gallery and the Maribeth Collins Lobby

Dale Chihuly (American, born 1941) is an internationally-recognized Seattle glass artist who helped revolutionize the studio glass movement in the 1960s and 1970s and who helped found the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington in 1971. The exhibition features 72 glass vessels, sculptures, and drawings from the George R. Stroemple Collection of Portland, Oregon.

Northwest Perspectives: Selections from the Permanent Collection

On permanent view

Carl Hall Gallery

Visitors can explore new ideas of landscape, narrative, identity, form and process through a variety of paintings, sculptures and mixed media that highlight both visual and conceptual relationships between historic and contemporary art.

The gallery provides the museum with an opportunity to share many previously unviewed works that capture the rich and varied expressions that have taken place during the past century, which has been marked by rapid changes in the art world, the Northwest and its landscape.

Ancestral Dialogues: Conversations in Native American Art

On permanent view

The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Gallery

Featuring works from the museum’s permanent collection of American Indian art, this exhibition is organized around the concept of dialogue. The focus is on native art history as a dynamic, rich legacy from which contemporary arts grow today. Art works are placed in conversation, juxtaposed so that the work of many generations is in visual dialogue across time, telling stories of creation, transformation, and renewal. Historic baskets, bags, regalia, and lithics are displayed side by side with contemporary art works by artists such as Rick Bartow, James Lavadour, Bud Lane, Lillian Pitt, Pat Courtney Gold, and Joe Feddersen among many others.

Across Continents, Through Time

On permanent view

Mark and Janeth Sponenburgh Gallery

This exhibition features selections from the museum’s European, Asian, and American Collections, which span 4,500 years and encompass four continents: Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. On view are paintings, ceramics, prints, sculptures, textiles, architectural fragments, archaeological artifacts, Orthodox icons and decorative arts that will deepen visitors’ appreciation for artworks of aesthetic quality and expressive significance from cultural traditions worldwide.

Many of the works of art displayed in this gallery were generously donated to Willamette University in 1990 by Mark and Janeth Sponenburgh, and formed the basis for the creation of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art.

Print Study Center

On permanent view

Print Study Center

The museum’s collections of works on paper – prints, drawings, paintings on paper, and photographs – are stored, studied and displayed in the Print Study Center. The collection includes many contemporary American works, particularly by artists of the Pacific Northwest. Other highlights include etchings by the 17th-century Dutch artist Anthonie Waterloo, and 19th-century American expatriate artist James Abbott McNeil Whistler, as well as an early pictorial photograph by Edward Steichen. Temporary exhibitions in the Print Study Center are designed to highlight works in the permanent collection, and complement and enhance the special exhibitions on view.

Point of View

On permanent view

Landing to the second floor

In this ongoing exhibition series, we invite members of the Willamette community to share their experience or interpretation of a work of art from the perspective of their area of expertise, study, or research. Each semester we will offer a new work, and a new "point of view."