ONLINE: Human/Nature: Portraits from the Permanent Collection

The Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Queens College, is pleased to present its first virtual exhibition HUMAN/Nature: Portraits from the Permanent Collection. Prints, drawings, paintings, and sculptures have been selected to reveal the rich treasures held by the museum, many unseen for decades. From a Roman mask illustrating Silenus, the companion of the god Dionysus, 5th c. B.C., to photographer Ralph Gibson’s “New York” series of the 1990s, works in the exhibition reach far into the past and into the present. Portraits of 16th c. sovereigns and scholars, WPA/FAP etchings and lithographs illustrating the quotidian moments of every day life, iconic Pop images by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, Roger Shimomura’s works questioning identity, and Kathe Kollwitz’s humanist depictions of the downtrodden, along with devotional objects such as reliquaries and statues carved in wood and stone, allows us to examine human portrayals from many cultures across time. The exhibition highlights the notion of how portraiture can sometimes straddle the line between reality and caricature, and where the boundary lies. And how we portray ourselves and others in selfies and photographs taken on mobile phones and posted on social media — the ubiquitous tools of choice of our 21st century digital natives.