Current Exhibits

A Private Collection Revealed

A new exhibit titled “A Private Collection Revealed,” curated by Ripon College art students and Art Professor Travis Nygard, will be on display in the Caestecker Gallery of the C.J. Rodman Center for the Arts from Jan. 21 to Feb. 14.

A curator’s talk will be given Friday, Jan. 31, at 7 p.m. in Demmer Recital Hall, followed by a reception.

This exhibit features artworks collected during the past 50 years, ranging from old masterworks to contemporary experimental art.

The anonymous collector grew up in a family of art lovers and has been searching for items ever since. The items on view have been gathered from across the United States, and reflect a global aesthetic sensibility. They have been found in art galleries, private sales and the dusty corners of attics.

“It has been a great experience to work with this collection, and it is a treat to see one collector’s sensibility put on display,” Nygard said. “In this show, there is something that everyone will love.”

The students involved in the curation and installation were Johnathan Derrick, Autumn Gundrum, Jonah Lazo, Christine Leusch, Jonah Roeper, Ruth Roltgen, Kate Shucha and Carter Vaughan.

The exhibit was developed during the fall 2024 semester in Nygard’s courses – “Controversies and Contexts of Art” and “Senior Seminar in Art.” Students selected, interpreted and compellingly arranged the items for display.

“We had open discussions amongst each other about what would look best in the show and how each individual item would complement each other,” Derrick said. “We used a diorama of the gallery and scale images of each item in order to decide how everything would fit in the space.”

The gallery contains many media, such as paintings, graphics, sculptures, carpets, glass and ceramics. It also includes many styles of art from Asia, Europe and the Americas.

Local artists from the Fox Valley, such as Nile Behncke and Tom Dietrich, are included, along with widely renowned artists. The collection is also particularly strong in printmaking, including work by Marc Chagall, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Leonard Baskin, Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau.

The Caestecker Gallery hours are Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 2-5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 2-6 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.