In this exhibition, significant things from Bowdoin’s diverse collections take center stage. Whether exquisite or quotidian, they tell expansive stories about the lives of people from around the world, and throughout history. The selections range from an ancient Roman flute to one of the first x-Rays created in Maine, from jade belt buckles from ancient China to James Bowdoin’s set of dueling pistols and Winslow Homer’s watercolor box. Bowdoin faculty, students, curators, and librarians present rarely seen material objects that enable us to interpret the world, communicate with each other, and learn about ourselves.

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RELATED EVENTS

January 30, 2014 | 4:30 p.m. | Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center
"Stone, Wood, Printing Press: Remembering (Almost) Forgotten Crafts"
To celebrate the exhibition The Object Show: Discoveries in Bowdoin Collections, three makers who practice rare crafts speak about their relationships to objects. Peter Follansbee is a woodcarver who reproduces seventeenth-century woodcarvings. Stonecarver Simon Verity, who has worked on Gothic churches such as St. John The Divine in New York City. Martha Finney is an artist who hand-writes with type, experimenting with printmaking techniques, words and numbers, and ancient secret codes.

January 30, 2014 | 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
Winter Open House at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Celebrate the beginning of the spring semester and the exhibition The Object Show: Discoveries in Bowdoin Collections.

February 20, 2014 | 12 noon | Bowdoin College Museum of Art
"Multiple Perspectives in The Object Show: Discoveries in Bowdoin Collections"
Tess Chakkalakal, associate professor of Africana studies and English, and John Cross, secretary of development and college relations, lead an interdisciplinary discussion of select works in The Object Show: Discoveries in Bowdoin Collections. First in a series of three gallery talks during the spring semester.

March 25, 2014 | 12 noon | Bowdoin College Museum of Art
"Multiple Perspectives in The Object Show: Discoveries in Bowdoin Collections"
Susan Kaplan, professor of anthropology and director of Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum and Arctic Studies Center, leads a discussion of select works in the exhibition. Second in a series of three gallery talks during the Spring 2014 semester.

April 17, 2014 | 12 noon | Bowdoin College Museum of Art
"Multiple Perspectives in The Object Show: Discoveries in Bowdoin Collections"
Susan Wegner, associate professor of art history, and Nathaniel Wheelwright, professor of natural sciences, lead an interdisciplinary discussion of select works in The Object Show: Discoveries in Bowdoin Collections. Third in a series of three gallery talks during the Spring 2014 semester.

April 30, 2014 | 4:30 p.m. | Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center
"The Smithsonian's History of America in 101 Objects"
Richard Kurin, Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture at the Smithsonian Institution will discuss objects in the Smithsonian's collections, such as the Star-Spangled Banner, Lincoln's hat, Bell's telephone, Armstrong's trumpet, Warhol's Marilyn Monroe, and even the National Zoo's pandas to weave an engaging history of our nation.