Eclectic Encounters: Selections from the Permanent Collection

With a permanent collection of over 6,500 objects, Telfair Museums can display only a small number of works at any given time due to its space constraints, the sensitivity of certain mediums, and the museum’s ever-rotating exhibition schedule. Heath Ritch, Exhibit Designer and Preparator for Telfair Museums, has seen every work that has been added to the collection over the last ten years; these works are often destined for storage until an appropriate space and exhibition can be determined. As the curator of Eclectic Encounters, he organized this exhibition to give these unseen and underutilized works their much-deserved moment on the gallery walls. This show is an intentional hodgepodge of eclectic works that offers an opportunity of discovery for the viewer.

One common element among the works is their power to complicate easy understanding on the part of the viewer, often through an enigmatic subject matter, an unusual narrative or medium, or an uncommon creative processes. This exhibition crosses time periods and art movements to include work by such varied artists as the eighteenth- century British painter and printmaker William Hogarth, the nineteenth-century impressionist Mary Cassatt, and the modernist painter Irving Petlin. Altogether, Eclectic Encounters reveals the wide range of works in Telfair Museums’ holdings and offers the viewer a compelling insider’s look at the collection.

Harry H. DeLorme Jr. (American, b. 1960)
Instant Picture, 1996
Acrylic on aluminum
Gift of Dr. Diane Lesko, 2006.57
JCS 119, Rack 9R