This catalogue documents an exhibition at the Kelsey Museum of
Archaeology of watercolor paintings by American artist Wendy Artin and
selected objects from the Museum's permanent collections. Wendy Artin
has been working for over a decade on a series of watercolors of ancient
Greek and Roman sculptures and related subjects. She is thus a fresh
presence in a long line of artists who draw inspiration from antiquity.
Indeed, this tradition has very ancient precedents. The exhibition and
catalogue place a selection of 47 of Artin's paintings--including
landscapes and figure paintings as well as images of ancient
sculptures--in dialogue with 14 objects drawn from the Kelsey's
collections, among them works of Greek art inspired by Egyptian
precedents, examples of Roman imperial portraits that were copied in
numerous media for circulation around the empire, and reproductions of
the same figure types featured in some of Artin's paintings (such as
Aphrodite Rising from the Sea). Wendy Artin's masterful watercolors
offer new and arresting ways of looking at ancient sculptures and
buildings--and of remembering the classical past.