Hillwood Art Museum Catalog on African Textiles Goes International

“Threads of Time: African Textiles from the Traditional to the Contemporary,” an exhibit that was on display earlier this year at Hillwood Art Museum on the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, has found new life with a world-wide audience.

Approximately 125 copies of the catalog for the exhibition, a scholarly publication made for the display and written by guest curator Lisa Aronson, Ph.D., a professor at Skidmore College and a scholar of African art history, were donated to the Arts Council of the African Studies Association’s (ACASA) Books Distribution Program. Through the initiative, complimentary subscriptions to the journal African Arts, select exhibition catalogues and books are sent to museums, libraries and research institutions in Africa and the Caribbean. The program is designed to foster and strengthen international scholarly exchange and collaboration.

The catalog was also donated to the Upstate History Alliance (UHA) and the Museum Association of New York (MANY) for a Silent Auction at the New York Annual Conference. The UHA Silent Auction is the organization’s largest fundraising event and works to highlight the organizations that contributed to the fundraiser. The UHA/MANY Conference is the largest gathering of museum professionals and volunteers in the state, giving New York State institutions access to a first rate professional development experience.

Hillwood Art Museum also received a $20,000 grant from the New York State Council on the Arts to develop two educational Web sites – one detailing this exhibit and one detailing an upcoming exhibit on Chinese paintings. The sites will be live by early 2008.

Hillwood Art Museum presents a year-round schedule of temporary and permanent exhibitions that cover topics from antiquity to the cutting edge of contemporary art from a scholarly perspective. The 4,500 square foot Museum boasts a beautiful curved gallery which Phyllis Braff of The New York Times has called “one of the Island’s most dramatic showcases for art.” Hillwood Art Museum’s impressive and eclectic Permanent Collection consists of objects dating from the earliest of man’s creative endeavors to contemporary art. The Museum, an established leader in visual arts programming on Long Island, conducts an active and well-attended Education Program that includes Family Day activities, an Evening Lecture and Performance Series, and extensive hands-on educational programs for local schools. Projects recognized by the New York Council for the Humanities and the New York State Council on the Arts confirm Hillwood Art Museum’s emphasis on education.

Hillwood Art Museum is located on the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, 720 Northern Boulevard (Route 25A), Brookville. Admission is free. The Museum has ample free parking and is handicap accessible. For more information, call (516) 299-4073 or visit www.liu.edu/museum.

Posted: July 10, 2007