 |
Smith Exhibits
Shine During Inauguration
Although Carol Tecla Christ
assumed the presidency of Smith College on June 1, 2002, it wasn’t until
October 19 that she was officially inaugurated as the 10th president.
The festive installation ceremony took place in the college’s Indoor
Track and Tennis Facility before some 4,000 guests. At Christ’s
request, her inauguration celebrated the wealth of achievements,
intellectual life and other unique assets that distinguish Smith.
 Portraits, plant spirals and rare
books were on display last fall in honor of Carol T. Christ’s
inauguration. Embodied in the nine exhibitions, free and
open to the public, were the
ideals of strong leadership, innovative research and creative
thinking that characterize a Smith education.
For example, portraits of the women
who have served as presidents at Smith hung in the Alumnae
House living room, selections from the art department’s print workshop
were on view in the Oresman Gallery of the just-opened Brown Fine Arts
Center
and rare artifacts woven from silk on Jacquard looms highlighted
the Northampton Silk Project, a research project led by Smith faculty.
An
installation featuring the new president’s favorite books from
19th-century English literature occupied the Morgan and Book
Arts galleries of Neilson Library.
Christ and her husband, Paul Alpers, also a scholar of English literature, chose
the selections for display, including 22 rare editions of 16 books assembled
by Martin Antonetti, Smith curator of rare books. Among the favorites were Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, a first edition; Oscar Wilde’s
Salome: A Tragedy in One Act, with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley; and the
first-edition of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley.
Still on exhibit through March, Plant Spirals:
Beauty You Can Count On is a unique
display that is the result of collaboration between Smith’s Botanic Garden
and math department. The inaugural exhibition is in the Church Gallery of the
newly renovated Lyman Conservatory and illustrates how the spiral, as found in
sunflowers, pinecones, on pineapples and in leaves, petals and other botanical
growths, twists and weaves through the plant in perfect patterns. |
|
