Beginning in 1948, the Saint-Gaudens Memorial has continued to sponsor a compelling series of exhibitions each summer season. The Picture Gallery, now a light-filled exhibition space far removed from its chicken-house origins, is a regional cultural hub and a valuable exhibition space for American art.
The space provides an important art venue for visitors to the park from distant locations and local communities. Contemporary art exhibits are occasionally interspersed with historical exhibitions featuring works from the park's collection. The annual exhibitions are organized through collaboration between the park and the Exhibitions Committee of the Saint-Gaudens Memorial.
Exhibits are included with park entry free and open during normal park hours. There is no admission fee for the evening opening receptions.
Christina Pitsch, gathered (detail), 2024. Found ceramic figurines; dimensions variable.
Photo from artist.
Current Exhibits
the ways we remember: monument, memento, souvenir
Christina Pitsch
August 17 - October 31, 2024
the ways we remember: monument, memento, souvenir interprets and juxtaposes objects in contemporary life that seemingly hold no importance other than their function. Cinder Blocks crafted of porcelain, cardboard leafed in gold, and an installation of “made in occupied Japan” figurines, collected and arranged by the artist, present the viewer with what Pitsch calls “a love song between the everyday objects we all see but don’t notice, and the decorative objects of the past that are revered.” A Manchester, New Hampshire-based sculptor and installation artist, Pitsch’s work questions ideas of beauty and idealization, and assumed hierarchies of class, taste and value.
Christina Pitsch has exhibited in the greater Boston area, has had numerous residencies, including multiple stints as an artist-in-residence at the European Ceramic Work Center in the Netherlands, and has received grants from the NH State Council on the Arts and the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation Artist's Resource Trust. Pitsch’s work is part of the Delta airlines collection and can be seen at the Seattle/Tacoma airport.
Athena LaTocha, La Bajada Red, 2017. Sumi and walnut ink, soil from La Bajada Mesa on paper; 104 x 362 inches.
Courtesy of artist.
Past Exhibitions
Lightning Strikes Twice
Athena LaTocha
May 25 - August 7, 2024
This exhibition features works created by the artist during spring of 2024 while Dartmouth Studio Art Department’s Artist-in-Residence. Athena LaTocha has created two massive works on paper for the Picture Gallery that are responsive to the natural and human-made histories of the Upper Valley. The austere installation is an immersive visual experience for the viewer that incorporates the colors, textures, history and materials that the artist has experienced and gathered in her exploration of the region. Rather than providing specific reference points, LaTocha’s goal is to express what can be felt or sensed about a place and its histories.
In Repose, sunflowers, beeswax, graphite, wood, canvas, 12’x6’x2’, 2023.
Photo by Lindsay Raymondjack
The Nature of Memory
Nancy Winship Milliken
August 19 - October 29, 2023
Describing her sculpture as “contemporary pastoralism,” Winship Milliken is inspired by our age-old relationship to nature as a way to consider ecological questions in the present. She creates environmental and site-specific sculptures in both urban and rural settings using natural materials like sheep’s wool or earth/clay from pasture fields surrounding the studio. Her design is based around the principle of keeping materials close to their original state with the goal of transforming the viewer, not the materials. Winship Milliken’s work, whether site-specific, or in the gallery setting ultimately addresses complex issues involved in sustainable living. Much of the work is made in collaboration with farmers, artisans, poets and environmental studies interns from universities all over the nation. The studio culture creates the space and time for mentoring creative environmental leadership.
Saint-Gaudens Memorial/Eli Burakian
Ughegbe \ Mirror
Eto Otitigbe
May 27 - August 7, 2023
Ughegbe \ Mirror is an exhibition of new sculpture and drawings by polymedia artist Eto Otitigbe. For this exhibition Otitigbe interweaves Afrofuturism, architecture, technology, science fiction, and organic materials to create works that speculate on our present relationship with the natural environment. “Ughegbe” is the word for mirror in Uhrobo, the West African language of Otitigbe’s cultural heritage.
An award-winning artist and curator, Otitigbe has had work and curatorial projects featured in public spaces, museums, and galleries around the world. He is an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Brooklyn College with degrees in engineering and design from M.I.T. and Stanford, and in Creative Practice from the University of Plymouth. Much of Otitigbe’s work explores history, culture, and community as it pays special attention to forms and patterns that reference the natural world. Otitigbe is the 2022 recipient of the Saint-Gaudens Fellowship, an annual award presented to an emerging artist from the Saint-Gaudens Memorial.
NPS/Rob Strong
One River, Many Views
Nancy Diessner, Brenda Garand, and Janet Pritchard
July 23, 2022 - October 30, 2022
One River, Many Views features the work of Nancy Diessner (MA), Brenda Garand (NH), and Janet Pritchard (CT), whose work responds to the Connecticut River’s beauty, its power, and its history. These artists work in a variety of media, including photography, drawing, printmaking and sculptural forms, at times using the river water, its soil and its flora as part of their artmaking process. In addition to the artwork, this exhibition will feature commissioned wall labels written by ten members of the Upper Valley community who live, work, and otherwise engage with the Connecticut River. These include creative writers, scholars and residents, as well as those from the Indigenous, agricultural, recreational, and other communities for whom the river is an important part of their daily lives. Their responses – reflective, celebratory, or interrogatory, will highlight the diverse natural and cultural histories and relationships with this imposing body of water. The exhibition seeks to encourage discussion as well as awareness of the ways that one topic can hold multiple approaches, opinions, expertise, and experiences.
