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2025 Acquisitions Announcement

A framed, mixed-media artwork by Julia Frey, consisting of thin strips of natural material woven into a square grid pattern centered on a white background. The weaving extends outward in four directions (up, down, left, right) forming a cross shape. The strips are varied in color, ranging from light beige to dark gray and black, creating a subtle checkerboard effect in the center. Loose, fine strands of thread or fiber extend from the corners of the woven structure.
A dark, classical oil still life painting by Raphaelle Peale, dated 1813. The composition features four triangular slices of a light-colored cake dotted with dark spices or currants, resting on a round, shallow, metallic dish. The cake slices are partially covered with white frosting. Behind the cake, a tall, clear stemmed glass holds a dark amber liquid. A dark green sprig with large, waxy leaves hangs down to the right. The background is a solid, dark brown or black, highlighting the subjects.

Selected Acquisitions

  • Created during Laylah Ali’s residency at the Tamarind Institute, Pink figure (acknowledging absence of brown figure) (2024) challenges traditional portraiture in its exploration of race, identity, and gender. The work was originally conceived as part of a diptych, but the companion print was never completed due to technical challenges. Ali revised the title to acknowledge that absence, imbuing the work with a sense of loss and unrealized potential. This is the first piece by Ali to enter the Colby Museum’s collection and coincides with her exhibition Is anything the matter? Drawings by Laylah Ali, on view at the museum through April 19, 2026.
  • Katherine Bradford, based in Maine and New York, builds figurative paintings from intuitive blocks of color, gradually refining them until a representational scene emerges. Swing Over Pond (2024) exemplifies her celestial, emotionally resonant style: a lone figure arcs over a swimmer-filled expanse in radiant purples and blues. Additionally, Bradford has donated Woman in Water (1998–99), a breakthrough early painting that introduced the swimmer motif that would become central to her practice. Together, these works—Bradford’s first to enter the Colby Museum’s collection—highlight her distinctive blend of abstraction and representation and enrich the museum’s engagement with Maine’s modern and contemporary painting traditions.
  • Joy Castle (2025) by Kathy Butterly exemplifies the artist’s meticulous ceramic practice. Working at an intimate scale, Butterly layers glazes through multiple firings to achieve rich textures and colors, shaping expressive, anthropomorphic forms that convey emotion and individuality. Joy Castle combines readymade molds with hand-sculpted spheres—what she calls her “power pearls”—to convey intentionality, compassion, and a sense of weight.
  • A newly commissioned painting by James Eric Francis Sr. weaves together ecological, cultural, and spiritual narratives, reflecting the Penobscot worldview of balance between people and the environment. It is the first work by the artist to enter the museum’s collection and is featured in Mαwte: Bound Together, on view at the Colby Museum’s Joan Dignam Schmaltz Gallery of Art at the Paul J. Schupf Art Center through April 13, 2026.
  • Untitled (Rite of Passage) (2023) by Jeremy Frey, a leading Passamaquoddy basketmaker, honors the evolution of Wabanaki basketry while reimagining its materials and methods for the present. Merging basketry and printmaking, the work transforms a woven ash and sweetgrass form—pressed to create basket relief prints—into a sculptural record of transformation, continuity, and cultural resilience.
  • Jared French’s painting Prose (c. 1948–50) explores themes of reflection, identity, and creation. Executed in the pointillist technique central to the artist’s mature style, the painting draws on imagery from PaJaMa, the photography collective French cofounded. This acquisition substantially strengthens the museum’s holdings of American magic realist and surrealist art, of which French was a leading figure.
  • Four woodblock prints from Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fuji sanjĆ«rokkei) by Utagawa Hiroshige, a leading figure of the ukiyo-e genre, highlight the artist’s mastery in depicting harmony between people and the natural world. Growing the museum’s Lunder Collection holdings of Japanese prints—a selection of which are currently on view in the Lunder Wing as part of a presentation of American and Japanese relief prints that examines ukiyo-e’s lasting impact, particularly in the United States—the works will enhance teaching opportunities.
  • Yellow Horse (n.d.) by Merina Lujan, also known as Pop Chalee, a Taos Pueblo and Swiss artist who rendered Indigenous subject matter with a modernist sensibility, is rendered in opaque watercolor with a bold yellow palette. The work draws on a Taos Pueblo legend of a mythical horse that watches over the community at night, and it exemplifies the artist’s signature, luminous, flat-style depictions of animals, spirits, and scenes of daily life. The first work by Pop Chalee to enter the museum’s collection, Yellow Horse enriches Colby’s representation of Southwest art and deepens its connections to the Taos art community.
  • Still Life with Raisin Cake (1813) by Raphaelle Peale, recognized as the first professional still-life painter in the United States, is the first work by the artist to enter the museum’s collection. Providing a view into nineteenth-century culinary habits and patterns of international trade, this work joins paintings by Peale’s father, Charles Willson Peale, and cousin, Charles Peale Polk, and is only the fourth painting from the 1810s—and the first that is not a portrait—in the museum’s holdings. The work is currently on view in the “Points of Exchange” gallery in the Lunder Wing’s Some American Stories.
  • AquĂ­ no hay luz (Here there is no light, 1995–96) by Juan SĂĄnchez, a Brooklyn-based artist born to Puerto Rican parents, explores identity, political struggle, and cultural memory within the Puerto Rican diaspora. Combining painting, collage, text, and symbolic imagery, the large-scale work addresses Puerto Rico’s political status as a US territory while layering references to African heritage, SanterĂ­a, and activism tied to the island’s independence movement. The first work by SĂĄnchez to enter the collection, AquĂ­ no hay luz will be featured in Imagining an Archipelago: Art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Their Diasporas, on view at the Colby Museum July 11, 2026, through June 6, 2027.
  • Sitting Indian (1972) by Fritz Scholder, an influential La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians artist, exemplifies his groundbreaking Indian Series, which brought Native rights and representation into dialogue with modernism. Blending Pop art, Abstract Expressionism, and figuration, Scholder challenged stereotypes of Indigenous portraiture to examine issues of identity, history, and the complexity of cultural difference. The first work by Scholder to enter the museum’s collection, Sitting Indian deepens Colby’s engagement with Indigenous and postwar American art, cultivating connections across art history and American studies.
  • Prisoner in a Cell (c. 1851–52) and Cadet Encampment (1852) by James McNeill Whistler are two early works that provide a rare glimpse into the artist’s formative years at the US Military Academy at West Point. Prisoner in a Cell, a pencil, ink, and wash drawing never exhibited during Whistler’s lifetime, and Cadet Encampment, his earliest known graphic work—a wood engraving accompanied by a cadet’s letter describing academy life—offer valuable insight into his early artistic development and the beginnings of his printmaking career. Together, these works expand the Colby Museum’s Lunder Collection, opening new avenues for research, teaching, and scholarship on this artist’s impact ahead of the museum’s upcoming 2027 Whistler exhibition.

Artists

Selected Works

Laylah Ali

Katherine Bradford

A vibrant, dark blue painting by Katherine Bradford titled "Swing Over Pond." The upper portion of the canvas depicts a night sky filled with large, colorful, abstract planets and stars, predominantly in shades of deep blue, purple, and neon yellow-green. A small figure in a white dress sits on a swing hanging from the top of the canvas, suspended over the scene. The lower portion of the painting is a rectangular pool or pond of bright turquoise water, where five semi-abstract figures (two red, two pink, one dark blue) are partially submerged.

Katherine Bradford

Abstract painting featuring a pink-hued figure swimming, viewed from above, against a vibrant turquoise-blue background. The figure's arms are outstretched, and the body is outlined in black.

Kathy Butterly

A contemporary, light pink ceramic bowl or vessel, possibly by Warren Buterly, with an irregular, undulating, and layered shape resembling a crumpled flower or piece of fabric. The upper edges are detailed with thin bands of yellow and green stitching or paint. The vessel sits on a small, square pedestal with an ombre orange, pink, and yellow crackled surface, outlined with thin gold trim. The entire piece is set against a solid gray background.

James Eric Francis, Sr.

A contemporary Indigenous dot painting by James Eric Francis titled mάwαməwak (They are Together), rendered in black, gray, red, orange, yellow, blue, and purple dots on a black background. The painting features two main horizontal zones: an upper section with a human-like silhouette and a porcupine, connected by swirling orange and red streams. The lower section features six detailed fish (possibly herring or smelt) swimming in a purple and blue stream, which originates from the porcupine. A central black and white fish skeleton bridges the two zones, with a four-directional arrow symbol above it.

Jared French

Utagawa Hiroshige

A vertical color woodblock print by Hiroshige from the series "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji," showing a coastal scene with travelers. In the distance, the iconic snow-capped peak of Mount Fuji rises above rolling hills and a distinctive, flat, island formation covered in green vegetation. In the foreground, a sandy beach leads to a bright blue sea with white-capped waves. Figures, including a man and two children, walk on the beach toward a small open-sided pavilion or tea stall on the right, where a couple sits. Red cartouches with Japanese text are located in the upper right and lower left.

Merina [Pop Chalee] Lujan

Juan SĂĄnchez

An abstract, mixed-media artwork titled "AquĂ­ No Hay Luz" (There is No Light Here) by Juan SĂĄnchez. The dark, black-and-red composition is divided roughly in half. The left side features a grid of colorful, collaged or painted geometric shapes resembling small houses or windows, highlighted with neon colors. The right side is dominated by a large, semicircular, orange-red arch containing the ghostly, reddish silhouette of a hand. Around the arch are circles made of collaged US dollar bills. White, yellow, and red text in both Spanish and English is scribbled across the dark background, including phrases like "AquĂ­ me falta luz y ya muchos han muerto" and "because here many have died of thirst."

Fritz Scholder

Painting titled "Sitting Indian" by Fritz Scholder. The figure, possibly a chief, is seated against a plain blue background on a brown mound. They are wearing a large headdress with white feathers and a red cap, a blue suit, and a red polka-dot tie. Bright orange suspenders contrast with the blue clothing. The figure's face is pale gray and green, and their hands are green. A long legging with blue and yellow diamond patterns and a red and white striped sock covers one leg, while the other leg is obscured. Blue paint drips are visible, and the figure holds a dark feathered object, likely part of a lance or staff.

James McNeill Whistler

A dark, monochromatic ink sketch by James McNeill Whistler, titled The Prisoner. The drawing depicts a somber interior scene dominated by a kneeling or crouching, bearded man with long hair, dressed in tattered clothes, who appears to be the prisoner. He faces a rough stone or brick wall. To the right, two or three men in military-style caps and coats are seated, observing the prisoner. The entire scene is executed with loose, dark lines and heavy shading, conveying a dramatic and confined atmosphere.

These acquisitions were made possible through generous gifts from museum supporters: Susan and Jon Bram; Anne Arnold Briggs Living Trust; International Artists Manifest; Alex Katz; David Levy; Peter and Paula Lunder; the Emily Mason and Alice Trumbull Mason Foundation; Jack Shear; Mrs. Jessie Snyder Thompson Huberty; and Seth A. Thayer, Jr. ’89 and Gregory N. Tinder, as well as through purchases from the Jere Abbott Acquisitions Fund; the A. A. D’Amico Art Collection Fund; Bruce C. Drouin ’74 and Janet L. Hansen ’75 Maine; the JettĂ© Acquisitions Fund; the Mellon Art Purchase Fund; the Robert Cross Vergobbi ’51 Museum Acquisition Fund; and the Vergobbi Museum Acquisition Fund.

Press Contact:
Jillian Scott, jscott@colby.edu

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