As we welcome a new class of bright, young students to Yale this fall, I am reminded of a scene during Commencement exercises on Old Campus just a few short months ago as we sent the Class of 2009 out into the world. Among the ten honorary degree recipients were two artists who have inspired generations and who inspired me that day.

Dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones, one of the nonalumni recipients of the title Doctor of Fine Arts, reminded all of us of the creative opportunities that life bestows upon us. As he walked across the Commencement platform to receive his award from President Levin, Jones did an exuberant pirouette that embodied the joy of all the proud students and families in the audience. Later at a small luncheon at Sterling Memorial Library, he spoke briefly—beginning and ending with a spiritual hymn that echoed in the vaults—about the changes that our country has seen and how seeing himself, an African-American artist, honored by Yale brought tears to his eyes.

Richard Serra, who holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Yale School of Art, also received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts. Serra’s Stacks (1990), now sited in the Susan Morse Hilles Sculpture Courtyard after many years in the Swartwout Sculpture Hall, has become an icon of our collection. Considered one of the leading artists of our time, Serra was featured recently in a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, and his works in steel change our reaction to space as his forms disorient and surprise us. His work will continue to inspire generations of students and delight Gallery visitors.

This fall’s exhibitions highlight artists who, like Jones and Serra, were and are willing to challenge convention and reinvent the way art is made and how we respond to it. The Pull of Experiment: Postwar American Printmaking looks at the innovations made in the postwar period by artists and printmakers in America who stretched beyond the previous limitations of materials. I am grateful to James N. Heald II, B.A. 1949, and his wife, Peggy, for their support of the Gallery’s collection of prints from this period, and for their encouragement of Katherine Alcauskas, our Florence B. Selden Fellow in the Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, to research and present this material to the public and students.

Continuous Present, organized by Jennifer Gross, the Seymour H. Knox, Jr., Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, features eleven artists who are currently producing work. The pieces in the installation challenge conceptions of time and invite viewers to think about how artists use traditional and innovative methods to convey their ideas. I hope you will take advantage of the many programs associated with this exhibition and the opportunity to meet several of the artists.

I encourage you to come to the Gallery this season and be inspired. Whether you attend a program, view an exhibition, or reconnect with a favorite work in the collection, it is our goal to continue to keep our audiences thinking about what art is and why it matters. So much is possible in life; it is artists, like Bill T. Jones and Richard Serra, who keep challenging us to go beyond what is possible.




Jock Reynolds
The Henry J. Heinz II Director