Free admission day at Bennington Museum on Saturday, May 11

BENNINGTON- On Saturday, May 11, from 10 am to 5 pm, admission to the Bennington Museum is free for all visitors, and the lineup for engagement is outstanding. At 11 am, join senior photographer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, Eileen Travell, and Bennington Museum’s curator Jamie Franklin for an up-close gallery exploration of “Up Home: Hand-Colored Photographs by Susanne and Neil Rappaport.”  From 1 to 4:30 pm, visitors can try their skill at hand-coloring works in the Paresky Wing. Minnie Griswold died in 1952, at which time her sons locked up their mother’s house in Pawlet, and left all her belongings in place, untouched, unaltered. Thirty years later, Pawlet documentarians Susanne and Neil Rappaport were invited by Charlie, one of Griswold’s sons, now 85 years old, into the house, and went on to produce a collection of hand-colored photographs of Griswold’s home. This exhibition brings together the best in documentary work and artistic expression.
At 3 pm, join artist Emily Mason as she opens her exhibition titled “Color | Gesture: Early Works by Emily Mason,” on view in the Works on Paper Gallery. For more than 60 years Mason has been creating lyrical abstractions on canvas and paper, where strong gestural marks contrast with delicate washes of color and spontaneous splashes and drips.This exhibition traces the development of the artist’s distinctive style of abstraction through paintings on paper created in the 1950s and 1960s.
In the Regional Artists Gallery is “The Mind’s Eye: Paintings, Sculpture, and Books” by Paul Katz. This exhibition features a variety of works, including paintings, sculpture, and drawing books, mainly from Katz’s “Prelude” and “Interlock” series. The “Prelude” includes paintings and everyday found objects with words painted on them as if on intertwined ribbons. The words are all taken from William Wordsworth’s poem “Prelude.” The look of the work was inspired in part by a photograph Katz saw in The New York Times in the days following 9/11. The image was of an office in which everything was covered by grey ash so that ordinary things like desks and computers took on the aspect of an ancient site exhumed.
Closing on Sunday, May 26, is the small but intriguing installation titled “Vermont Folk Sculpture: A Recent Acquisition.” Unique works in this exhibition feature a carved fence post created in 1900 by Russel Risley (1842-1927), of Kirby.  Risley spent his entire life on his family’s farm where he went about painting on the walls of the house – inside and outside – as well as the outbuildings such as the barn. He also carved fence posts, rock, and blocks of wood. “The Carved Corner Post” is one of the museum’s newest acquisitions, which was purchased with the assistance of Lyman Orton. This work is accompanied by other iconic examples of sculpture created by individuals from Vermont who worked in popular vernacular traditions.
In the Early Vermont Gallery explore the installation of  “Miniatures and Small Portraits” from the museum’s collection dating back to the American Revolution. Featured in this display is a framed tintype of a painting of Lt. Jonathan Holton, a soldier in the Battle of Bennington. A lieutenant of the Nichols Regiment, Holton was wounded at Bennington on August 16, 1777. His wound is visible in the portrait also on view.
For more information visit www.benningtonmuseum.org.