Staff Favorites

Read about favorite works in our collection, as selected by museum staff.

Anny Lu, Work Study Student 

The watercolor View of the Val d’Aosta, Italy by J.M.W. Turner exudes a calming effect on the audience with its pastel colors and landscape subject. The work is small, but with his use of colors to create depth, Turner really brings the audience with him to Val d’Aosta. It is also really exciting and refreshing to see a more peaceful painting from Turner that draws the audience into the landscape as he is often known for his dramatic paintings such as the Burning of Parliament. I really like that this watercolor is serene and makes one feel connected with a great natural wonder. Specifically, the two people in the foreground put into perspective how grand the mountains are in the background and help provide the audience an experience of visiting Val d’Aosta. Turner definitely gave me a preview of this beautiful mountainous region of Northern Italy, and I will certainly be adding the Val d’Aosta to my travels bucket list!

I am a Rutgers class of 2021 graduate, majoring in History and Linguistics. I worked at the Zimmerli from the Fall of 2017 until graduation in May 2021. I also worked at the Zimmerli summer art camp every year and enjoyed making art with the campers!

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Christine Giviskos, Curator of Prints, Drawings, and European Art

Tanabata by Bertha Lum has been a favorite since I first had the chance to dive into her prints while working on the Blocks of Color exhibition in 2009. Every time I look at it, I am dazzled by the luminosity and interplay of different shades of blue that Lum achieved in this woodcut. In addition to her technical accomplishment, I adore the way Lum depicted the romantic climax of the Japanese legend of the lovers Orihine and Hikoboshi, who were banished to opposite sides of the Milky Way and only could be reunited for one day each year. According to the story, on the seventh day of the seventh month, a flock of birds joins together to form a bridge that allows Orihine to cross the galaxy to meet her beloved. I can’t help but think that Bertha Lum’s choice to focus on Orihine crossing the bridge alone and lighting her own way, instead of depicting her meeting with Hikoboshi, reflects Lum’s personal circumstances as a single mother pursuing her artistic career in Japan and China during the early 1900s.

I have been a curator at the Zimmerli since 2007, working with great colleagues to make the collection accessible through exhibitions, visits to the print study room, and now through digital platforms.

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Amanda Potter, Curator of Education and Interpretation

Art is often seen as such serious business, which is one of the reasons why I’m drawn to works with a sense of humor. In this untitled work, the Ukrainian artist Petr Belenok has a bit of fun with the international craze for Abstract Expressionist art in the 1950s and 60s. Abstract Expressionism (most famously practiced by Jackson Pollock) often featured dramatic brushstrokes and paint splatters. At first glance, Belenok seems to be doing just that, with a boldly-painted white circle on a black background above a section of black and white lines. Look again, and you’ll see that Belenok has placed a small figure of a man standing among the lines, wearing a hard hat and walking away from us with his hands on his hips. Suddenly, this isn’t an abstract painting, but a picture of a worker in a field on some far-away planet with an extraordinary astronomical object in the sky. This simple addition deflates the self-serious, macho energy that often characterized Abstract Expressionist art. Belenok’s paintings also remind me of the writings of Kurt Vonnegut (another personal favorite), where ordinary people labor in absurd and otherworldly surroundings.

I started at the Zimmerli in 2016, where I work with a wonderful team to design and carry out the museum’s many educational programs for audiences of all ages. My job is essentially to build connections between people and art, and help more people feel that they belong at the Zimmerli. I passionately believe that art and creativity have a role to play in everyone’s life.

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Hannah Shaw, Graduate Assistant in the Art of the Americas department

A couple of years ago, I had the good fortune of organizing an exhibition at the Zimmerli of photographs from Bill Owens’ Working series. I still never get tired of looking at them. I’m always struck by how vividly Owens captured the personalities of his subjects, and how he suffused the series as a whole with sociological insight and wry humor. These qualities are all present in The only way to learn anything in photography is by making lots of mistakes…, which shows a slightly grumpy photographer at work. I also love how this photograph doubles as a self-portrait; the caption—drawn from a statement made by his subject—closely matched Owens’ personal experience as a photojournalist hustling to make a living in the Bay Area.

I help with exhibitions, collections management, grant proposals, and educational programs.

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Deanna Fredericks, Manager of Visitor Services & Security

I love the (nearly monochromatic) colors, the fog, the abstract cityscape and the isolation, not necessarily lonely. When I first began my design career in NYC, I had a third floor sublet on the Upper West Side with a bow window that overlooked Riverside and Amsterdam streets. This painting brings back memories of my excitement at living and working in Manhattan right out of art school. 

I began working at the Zimmerli in 2014 and am entrusted with securing the building and protecting the collection on view while providing a safe and welcoming visitor experience.

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Kiki Michael, Associate Registrar

I have many favorites from our collection, but one piece that stands out to me is a sculpture by the artist Emmanuel Frémiet. I came across this piece in one of our storage areas, and as soon as I saw it, it became my all-time favorite. The Zimmerli is full of collection pieces with cat imagery, from our illustrations for children’s literature collection to all of the prints and posters related to Le Chat Noir, but you don’t often come across feline sculptures quite like this one. Also, I’m obsessed with my cat, and Puss in Boots looks just like her!

I've worked at the Zimmerli for 15 years. I dab in all things registrarial, but my focus is in Rights & Reproductions and collection digitization.

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Sopio Gagoshidze, Dodge Fellow

The fish is the oldest Christian symbol of Christ used by the persecuted early Christians as a secret sign of their faith. During the Soviet period Christian themes were used by artists to express their protest against the regime, in view of the fact that Christianity, and religion in general, was prohibited in the USSR.

The assemblage White Fish by prominent Georgian nonconformist artist Avto Varazi demonstrates his protest against the system as well as the repression of a value that was so important for him living in Georgia, one of the oldest Christian nations.

Varazi invokes the metaphorical and symbolic meaning of the fish to protest the principles of socialist realism. He was one of the few artists who never produced any artwork that followed the rules established by the Soviet authorities.

I work in the Department of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union and Arts of Eurasia as a curatorial assistant providing help with exhibition preparation, research, collection care and management of the Georgian part of the collection. I am a 3rd year graduate student in the Department of Art History, Rutgers University.

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Nicole Simpson, Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings

I vividly remember the day when I first saw this print at the Zimmerli. I was in our storage area looking for something else, when I opened a solander box and this young figure was peering up at me. I was immediately fascinated by the egg-shaped framing of the portrait, enveloping the person in a womb-like tenderness and suggesting an imminent birth. Like many artists working during the 1930s and 40s, Lewis created a social realist portrait of everyday life, here depicting one of the millions who was part of the Great Migration. The sensible traveling outfit and steady gaze suggest the determination and courage of such a move, while the small square patch shapes on the clothes give hints to Lewis's future interest in abstraction.

I began working at the Zimmerli in 2016 and research and interpret the collection through classes, programs, and exhibitions. Since we have been closed to the public, I've been working with my colleagues to create new virtual offerings, like Zimmerli at Home, to bring the museum to you.

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Rebecca Brenowitz, Manager of Event Services 

This work has been one of my favorites for 20 years. It brings us all back to when we were little and perhaps our experiences with art, paint, crayons, and what images we might have liked reading about or drawing. The palette of so much that we could match and mix, the palette of play. I still have somewhere at home my works of art in 4th grade when once a month (for 1/2 day) we were given by the teacher paper, paints, and an easel and while the class learned we were allowed to paint. We were in heaven - having this day of glory to paint, listening from the back to all that the teacher said but we could paint for two hours and come up with our own masterpiece.  My best paintings were of the countryside - a farmhouse, a road leading up to the barn, a haystack, some horses, chickens and of course, a dog.

This Duvoisin work really comforts my soul. 

I have worked at the Zimmerli for 20 years and have had several museum job titles along the way. I was born in Washington Heights, NYC and grew up in Bayside, Queens. For the past 40 years, central Jersey has been my home. I love archaeology, genealogy and hand drumming. Not working inside the walls of the museum for the past several months has been a real struggle. I miss the atmosphere of art mixed with people to a degree that's indescribable.

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Donna Gustafson, Interim Director and Curator of American Art and the Mellon Director for Academic Programs

This is a posed photograph of 3-year old Amelia, the daughter of photographer Robin Schwartz, and a chimpanzee named Ricky (I don't know Ricky's age). Schwartz, an award-winning photographer from New Jersey, has focused much of her energy on photographing animals. This photograph is one of a nearly 20-year series featuring Amelia, who is something of an animal whisperer, and a wide range of domestic and exotic animals who live in the human world. Two books and several exhibitions have come out of this photographic project. 

What I love about this photograph is the mutual love and the protective gestures that enclose these two fragile beings -  a child and a chimpanzee. The beautiful symmetry of their entwined arms and the cheek to cheek pose amplifies their mutual regard. A final beautiful detail is that as Ricky and Amelia sit entwined together on a single chair, Amelia meets the camera with her own direct gaze while Ricky shyly averts his eyes. Such a detail gives us a sense of the child's comfort in the human world and Ricky's unease. Her willingness to engage with our own gaze as we study the photograph suggests her role as a mediator between the human and natural world and a protector of the creatures who have had to make a home with humans. This reminder to see individual creatures as unique entities, to see this chimpanzee as Ricky, not simply part of an unknown, undistinguished member of a different species is part of this photograph's appeal. While focused on a single moment with two individuals, it speaks to much larger and complex issues of our relationship to nature and the creatures that share our planet.

I've been at the Zimmerli for 10 years. My work at the museum includes work on the collection, organizing exhibitions, and creating programs for the university and the public. I am particularly interested in photography and have focused much of my attention on building a photography collection; this is one of our recent acquisitions.

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Margaret Molnar, Associate Registrar 

Some people may be surprised to learn that the Zimmerli Art Museum has a large portrait collection. That’s because most of the portraits are not on view at the museum itself, but at buildings on various Rutgers University campuses. They are portraits of former and current University officials. The older portraits often portray elderly, severe-looking, men wearing black and sitting in front of dark backgrounds. I’m sure in real life they were pleasant company, but their portraits are rather off-putting.

Hoppner’s woman is very different from these portraits. She is relaxing in a beautiful landscape, wearing a dress in the height of fashion, her hair charmingly styled. She seems to be amused at something – maybe at the artist, maybe at the viewer. She is the complete opposite of off-putting. And her hat is the finest I’ve seen in any museum!

I’ve been at the Zimmerli Art Museum since 2007. I work in the Registrars department which takes care of the art collection and the documentation associated with it. I work with the permanent collection, processing new works that come into the collection, loans we make to other museum, and art that we put on exhibition. I work a lot with our collection database making sure works are entered and that the information is accurate.

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Photo Peter Jacobs

Julia Tulovsky, Curator for Russian and Soviet Nonconformist Art 

This painting is one to the key works from the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union. Much like works of government-imposed style of Socialist Realism, it has the attributes and regalia of the Soviet State and portrays Joseph Stalin with a heroic gaze on his face. The artists however are deliberately going too far and bring Stalin’s entourage to absurdity by elevating Soviet epic tales about Stalin to Greek mythology. The subject of the painting refers to a Greek legend about origin of art, when a young girl in Corinth traced a shadow of her lover’s profile on a wall to retain his image before he went off to war. By tracing Stalin’s profile in Komar and Melamid’s painting the muse creates one of the most repeated emblems of the Soviet state during the years of Stalin’s rule. At the same time the painting conveys artists’ sarcasm and their mockery towards Socialist Realism.

I have had the privilege of serving as Zimmerli’s curator for Russian and Soviet nonconformist art for over ten years now. I am delighted at the opportunity to work with Zimmerli’s reach collection of Russian art and its world-class Dodge collection, which is larges of its kind in the world, and organize exhibitions and public programs, as well as publish on important artists that are lesser known in the US.  

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Claire D’Amato, Assistant Curator of Education and Outreach

My favorite work in the Zimmerli’s collection is William J. Warner, Jr.’s Homestead of William Warner, Sr., Jenkintown, PA, an oil on canvas painting from 1843. This landscape, with its rolling hills, giant willow trees, and stone colonial house is so charming that I have to visit it every time I go through the American gallery. From the moment I saw this painting as a student guard, all I wanted to do was live in that house. The bucolic life that I associated with this house and its landscape was so enticing. In a pre-Pinterest era, this painting created so many enjoyable scenarios in my mind - reading, baking, painting, gardening, and sitting outside on a perfect fall or spring day. These are still the things I think about when I look at this work, and I still wish I could live in such a quaint country house. For me, Warner’s painting evokes a sense of comfort, calm, and coziness – all of which I try to incorporate into my suburban, 21st century life.

I started at the Zimmerli as a student guard in 2007 and worked in several departments until starting my current position in 2016. Currently, I manage the studio art programs and assist on some level with most other public programs including lectures, tours, concerts, and outreach events. The best part of my job is getting audiences of all ages – especially children - excited about art, history, and museums.

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Photo Peter Jacobs

Maria Garth, graduate curatorial assistant and Dodge Fellow

This is one of my favorite works in the Zimmerli’s collection because it is a standout example of photography in the Soviet Union. It has the quality of both the everyday, but also the idealized. It conveys both socialist reality and the utopian and aspirational tone of this period. During the 1930s, the construction of the Moscow subway was a major event that transformed the city. Artists, and photographers like Olga Ignatovich, were enlisted in publicizing and memorializing the new Moscow Metro. She was one of the first successful professional women photographers in a male-dominated field. Her life and career are fascinating to me, and I am currently writing about her in my dissertation.

I help organize exhibitions of the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union. I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art History at Rutgers University, specializing in Russian and Soviet art and photography.