Archive for the 'Exhibitions' Category

Pictures for the Season

A small display of original art for Christmas and the winter season painted by Pauline Baynes is on view through December in the Special Collections Instruction Gallery, Sawyer Room 408, Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Baynes (1922–2008), a prolific artist and designer, is best known as the illustrator of the “Narnia” books […]

The Fourth of July

On Tuesday, July 4th, at 1:30 p.m. actors from the Williamstown Theatre Festival once again will give a public reading of the Declaration of Independence, the September 1776 British reply to the Declaration, and the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. Also to be read, for the first time at the annual Chapin Library event, will […]

Independence Day Readings

Once again this July 4th, at 1:30 p.m. in the atrium of Sawyer Library at Williams College, actors from the Williamstown Theatre Festival will read the Declaration of Independence of July 1776, the British reply to the Declaration of September 1776, King George III’s speech to Parliament of October 1776, and the Preamble to the […]

Shakespeare and His World

“‘While Thy Booke Doth Live’: Shakespeare and His World”, an exhibition marking the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, has opened in the Chapin Gallery (Sawyer 406) and will be on view through October 11th. Its title is taken from a poem by Ben Jonson which appears in the famous 1623 First Folio […]

Constitution Conserved

When the Chapin Library’s draft printing of the U.S. Constitution was lent to the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in 2014, to be displayed next to the Lincoln Cathedral copy of the Magna Charta, conservators expressed concern over a “fog” within our document’s protective frame of glass and Lexan polycarbonate. Their initial fear was […]

Seeing the Light

The Chapin Library has opened its winter exhibition, Seeing the Light: Color in Theory and Practice. Seeing the Light was inspired by a presentation given last term by Chapin Librarian Wayne Hammond with faculty member Beverly Acha for her Studio Art course in painting. Ms. Acha wanted to introduce her students to ways color has […]

The Mexican War

War was declared between Mexico and the United States in May 1846 in the wake of disputes over contested territory along the Rio Grande and the U.S. annexation of Texas. Fierce battles followed, in Mexico and the Southwest and on the Pacific coast. One of the most important of these was the Battle of Chapultepec […]

Teaching with Rare Books

Since its inception one hundred years ago, the mission of the Chapin Library has been to support teaching and research at Williams College with rare books, manuscripts, and other special materials. As an early donor, Carroll Atwood Wilson (Class of 1907), wrote, every item in the Chapin Library “has been placed there for an educational […]

The Heritage Collection

An exhibition of selections from the Chapin Library’s Heritage Collection of black literature and culture will be on view in the Chapin Gallery (Sawyer 406) from July 27 to September 25, 2015. An opening reception will be held in the Gallery on Tuesday, July 28, from 3:00 to 4:30 pm. Born in the Netherlands in […]

Declaring Independence

For the twenty-ninth consecutive year on the 4th of July, actors from the Williamstown Theatre Festival will read the Declaration of Independence, the British replies of September and October 1776, and the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, in conjunction with a display of these and other founding documents of the United States from the collection of […]