Recent Exhibitions

Beneath the elm tree's shade: Landscapes from the Swarthmore College Art Collection

October 18 - December 13, 2026

Opening Reception: Thursday, Nov. 12
4:30–5:30 p.m.: Curators’ Gallery talk
Lang Performing Arts Center, Cinema 
5:30–7 p.m.: List Gallery Reception
Lang Performing Arts Center, Lobby

Gallery hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 12–5 p.m.

Gallery hours: Tuesday – Sunday, Noon–5 p.m.

The List Gallery is pleased to present Beneath the elm tree's shade: Landscapes from the Swarthmore College Art Collection. The exhibition highlights the diverse ways that the landscape, environment, and spiritual visions of place have been depicted over time through more than twenty paintings, many of which have recently been assessed and received conservation treatment. These include works by notable 19th and 20th century American artists, such as Edward Hicks, James Peale, Thomas Birch, Martin Johnson Heade, Louis Michel Elishimius, Daniel Garber, Ernest Lawson, Mary Elizabeth Price, and Fern Coppedge.

Through additional works by a selection of artists from diverse cultures and eras, including Okada Beisanjin, Jack Britton, Toshi Yoshida, and Daniel O’Neil, the exhibition contrasts visual relationships to land and belonging, considering how the landscape genre has been differently deployed and modified by artists from Indigenous, East Asian, and other global contexts. 

The exhibition was co-curated by Andrea Packard '85, emerita director of the Swarthmore College Art Collection, Art Collection Manager Sara Hesdon Buehler, and Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and Art History Christopher Green. Beneath the elm tree's shade is the first exhibition in the List Gallery solely dedicated to work from the permanent collection.

Views of Travel, Reverie, and Repose: Selected East Asian Works from the Swarthmore College Art Collection

Exhibition dates: March 3 –April 19, 2026
List Gallery reception:
March 19, 5:30-7:00 PM

The List Gallery presented Views of Travel, Reverie, and Repose: Selected East Asian Works from the Swarthmore College Art Collection from March 3 through April 19, 2026, concurrently with a presentation of mixed-media works by Philadelphia-based artist Colette Fu.

This exhibition highlights concerns explored by East Asian artists from the early modern period to the twentieth century. Themes depicted include travel and its transformations, the dynamics of the natural world, performance and gendered practices, and the importance of diverse narrative forms, including poems, commentaries, folktales, and legends. Together, the works encourage viewers to embark on imaginative journeys that offer space for reverie, repose, and reflection. They also offer opportunities to think critically about the way societies construct and aestheticize class and gender.

Views of Travel, Reverie, and Repose is the first exhibition featuring works from the College Art Collection since 2023, when the Swarthmore established staff positions dedicated to improving the management, development and curricular use of the Collection. The exhibition was co-curated by Andrea Packard, the inaugural director, Sara Hesdon Buehler, Art Collection Manager, and Susan Eberhard, Visiting Assistant Professor, Art History. 

The close collaboration between the program in Art History, College Art Collection, and List Gallery is providing both curricular and extracurricular learning opportunities and work study employment for students, who helped research collection works and plan for the exhibition.  Funding was provided by the Art History Program’s Lee Frank Fund, the Ann Trimble Warren ’38 Exhibition Endowment, and the List Gallery Donors’ Fund.

Learn more at the List Gallery