Society & Power: Curatorial Intern 2026

May 15 – August 22, 2026

Visual art is a means of communicating an artist’s message, plainly or at times covertly, to various audiences. Prints, which are produced in significant quantities and intended for wide consumption, are used to distill ideas throughout society. The embedded meanings can support or challenge the public’s perception of the social powers and hierarchies which govern them – whether religious, cultural, or political. Structures of social control and partitions – such as religion, class, and government – are leveraged by some artists to impress the gravity of the artwork’s message to the audience.  

For example, religion may be wielded to both support and criticize worldly authority. Many of the poor – as seen in Alphonse Legros’s L’Arbre De Salut – could not afford a print like Albrecht Dürer’s but still found solace in the representation of Jesus as the Man of Sorrows, a martyr who sacrificed himself for their salvation. While Christ is sometimes represented as an opposition to worldly authority, as in Jacques Callot’s Christ Condemned by Pilate and in Dürer’s Christ Crowned of Thorns, at other times he yielded to it. In the woodcut Vita Christa by Ludolphus De Saxonia, Jesus pays the temple tax at the door of the Temple at Capernaum, bidding the apostle Peter to retrieve the tax from the mouth of a fish. This story emphasizes the necessary coexistence of religious and civic duties – to worship divine authority may not mean shirking off worldly ones.  

Several of the artworks in this exhibition illustrate how social powers and hierarchies affect disparate margins of society. Hogarth’s Four Times of Day series – set in locations throughout London – illustrates the intimate coexistence of extreme wealth and dismal poverty found in urban centers. Honoré Daumier’s Physionomies Traciques similarly reflects the apathy of the elite and is critical of those who leverage imperial expansion and war for greater power, despite its bloody cost. Two Japanese woodcuts by an unknown mid-19th century artist continue this theme, revealing the ways imperial dominance can serve to form the basis for social and racial hierarchy. Other works reveal what can happen when such disparity becomes too burdensome. In her Peasant’s War series, Käthe Kollwitz uses the 16th century Peasant’s War — which upended much of central Europe — to comment on the poverty and exploitation of the contemporary rural and industrial working class. The messaging behind art reflects the questions, priorities and ideologies people have wrestled with throughout history. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, visual art becomes a perfect mechanism to reveal complex systems of social control, and how they weave together to form the basis of society and culture that inform our lives. 

 Tilia Baratta

Curatorial Intern 2025-2026 

B.F.A in Fine Arts 

  • Jacques Callot (French, 15 92 – 1635). Christ Condemned, 1617. Etching. Gift of Craddock and Barnard, 57.13.G
  • Honoré Daumier (French, 1808 – 1879). Physionomies Traciques, 1833. Lithograph. Museum purchase, 69.196.G
  • Ludulphus de Saxonia (German 1300 – 1377). Vita Christa (Tribute Money), no date. Woodcut. Gift of the Carnegie Corporation, 46.23.G
  • Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471 – 1528). Christ Crowned with Thorns, 1496. Woodcut. Gift of the Kenduskeag Fund, 57.12.G
  • Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746 – 1828). Both works: Aquatint and etching
    • Devota profesion (Devout Profession), from Los Caprichos, 1799. Museum purchase, 51.2.G
    • Hilan Delgado (They Spin Finely ), from Los Caprichos, 1799. Museum purchase, 51.1.G
  • William Hogarth (British, 1697 – 1764) All works: Gift of Arthur B. Conner, Class of 1930
    • The Four Times of Day (Morning), 1738. Metal engraving. 68.63.G
    • The Four Times of Day (Noon), 1738. Metal engraving. 68.64.G
    • The Four Times of Day (Evening), 1738. Metal engraving. 68.65.G
    • The Four Times of Day (Night), 1738. Metal engraving. 68.66.G
  • Käthe Kollwitz (German, 1867 – 1945)
    • Die Pfluger (The Plower), 1921. Etching. Gift of Ernest Lowenstein, Roten Galleries, 74.583.G
    • Los Bruch (Out Break) from The Peasants War series, 1903. Aquatint and etching. Gift in Honor of Donald M. & Ruth Stewart, 2013.10
  • Alphonse Legros (French, 1837 – 1911). L’Arbre de Salut, 1862. Etching. Museum purchase, 69.167.G
  • Unknown Japanese artist. Both works: Woodcut
    • Title unknown, no date. Gift of Charles Byrne, 86.1.1.15
    • Title unknown, no date. Gift of Charles Byrne, 86.1.4.5