College Updates From World View
April 2009
The Ackland Art Museum
Like the UNC University Library, the Ackland Art Museum is one of the hidden treasures of the state. We encourage you to use it as a resource like the library as you teach your students about the world. This issue of College Updates highlights Ackland’s on-site and online resources. This information is taken from the Ackland website: www.ackland.org/index.php.
Since 1958, the Ackland Art Museum has been one of North Carolina's most important artistic resources. Located on Columbia Street near the Franklin Street intersection in downtown Chapel Hill, the Ackland serves The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as well as broad local, state, and national constituencies. The Museum's collection consists of more than 15,000 works of art, featuring North Carolina's premier collections of Asian art and works of art on paper (drawings, prints, and photographs), plus significant collections of European masterworks, twentieth-century and contemporary art, African art, and North Carolina pottery. The Ackland organizes more than a dozen special exhibitions a year.
The Museum is committed to making its entire collection accessible online. Today, the entire collection is documented with over a third accompanied by images. You can search the collection using the Ackland website.
Education
Education is central to the Ackland. Like a laboratory, the Museum promotes innovative experimentation with instructional strategies. Like a library, the Museum offers a wide array of teaching resources to enrich the classroom experience. Collaborations with members of the University and the community take many forms: gallery lessons tailored to specific course objectives, approaches for informal learning in the Ackland, student and faculty research projects, and more.
The Ackland Art Museum is happy to offer a variety of ways to enhance teaching, research, and public service at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Ackland houses an important and comprehensive collection of more than 15,000 works of art, ranging from ancient to modern. The Museum is especially rich in European painting and sculpture of the 15th - 19th centuries and in Asian painting and sculpture. The collections of drawings, prints, and photographs are among the most significant in the Southeast.
Teaching
Faculty and teaching assistants may schedule either guided or self-guided visits to the Ackland for their classes by contacting the Director of Academic Programs. Due to limited gallery space and a  busy tour schedule, we ask that you schedule your visit with us at least two weeks in advance, whether you are planning a guided or self-guided visit, formal lecture or informal discussion. Remember that some of the Ackland galleries can accommodate no more than 15 people. Large classes should be divided into smaller groups of students to ensure a safe, productive, and enjoyable visit for you and your students.
How can I plan a self-guided visit to the Ackland?
You may wish to lead your own class visit to the Ackland. If so, there are a number of options you may want to consider in planning your visit.
Galleries, parts of the permanent collection, or particular objects in the Ackland may provide helpful starting points for class discussions related to your course topic. Temporary exhibitions that incorporate themes central to your course may also be of interest, check the Ackland's exhibition schedule.
We can also suggest to you some interactive gallery activities that may be useful to your class. Many of them were designed for introductory and intermediate foreign language courses, which demand a high level of student participation. The objectives of these activities and the skills they develop, however, make them well suited to many courses that emphasize active learning. Click here for examples of self-guided gallery activities.
You should schedule your visit with the Director of Academic Programs, who may be able to suggest more ideas. Before your visit, you should familiarize yourself and your students with the Museum Rules.
What options are available for guided visits?
The Ackland offers tours tailored to specific course topics. The Director of Academic Programs leads these tours, which typically focus on a few works of art selected to stimulate a lively class discussion of major concepts and issues related to your class. Most instructors find these tours particularly helpful to them because they:
- Reinforce and complement course content and objectives.
- Develop students' thinking, speaking, and writing skills.
- Address students' different styles of learning by providing a new, visually-focused environment for instruction.
- And more
The Director of Academic Programs can work with you to develop a lesson plan that best serves your students, course topic, and teaching objectives. To see examples of curriculum-structured tours designed for other classes, click here.
Click here for information about scheduling a class visit.
Research
The Ackland offers numerous opportunities for research projects based on its collections and related to UNC-CH undergraduate and graduate courses. Faculty members and teaching assistants who are interested in assigning class research projects should contact the Director of Academic Programs, who has information about research resources.
Resources for information about works of art in the Ackland Art Museum
In Class Tours you will be able to find the objects most often used for curriculum tours in the Ackland. The left hand bar, which scrolls down, contains the images of these objects with the artist and titles below. Click on any of these objects and an image accompanied by background information will appear in the main frame. If you click on the image on this page, a larger image will load. If you go to the bottom of the background information page, you will find a link called Issues to Consider. This will take you to another page that offers suggestions on how to contextualize the work and questions that may help a student to begin a paper. Some of these contain highlighted links to other works of art offered for comparison. The words that are highlighted, but do not refer to an art work, are links to a glossary of art terms.
Collection Highlights
The Ackland Art Museum's permanent collection includes the art of Asia, Africa, Europe, and America, with works ranging from ancient times to the 21st century. Click on the image of a piece of art for larger image, description, history, and analysis.
For information about how to conduct library research on works of art in the Ackland, you may wish to consult the Sloane Art Library Web page. |
