50 exceptional new acquisitions demonstrate range and depth of Museum’s collections and include major works by Rembrandt, Smithson, Schwitters, Wilke and many others

PRINCETON, NJ—This summer the Princeton University Art Museum features 50 exceptional recent acquisitions in a special installation that underlines both the continuing ambition of the Museum’s collecting activities and the universal scope of its collections. The exhibition, Faces and Facets, includes works by such artists as Jules Olitski, Philip Pearlstein, Bridget Riley, Florian Schmidt, Kurt Schwitters, Robert Smithson, John Trumbull, Rembrandt, Hannah Wilke and Hale Woodruff; Greek, Japanese and Native American ceramics; ancient Cypriot and Pre-Columbian sculpture; a Korean six-panel folding screen; a French medieval architectural fragment; Chinese, Indian, Japanese and African works on paper; and French, British and American photography.

Drawn from the works that have entered the Princeton University Art Museum collections since 2010, the installation will be on view from July 6 to Aug. 18, 2013, and represents but a small selection of the hundreds of gifts and purchases that have recently entered the Museum’s holdings.

“The past few years have brought an abundance of stunning and distinguished new objects that complement the Museum’s comprehensive holdings in innumerable ways,” said Princeton University Art Museum Director James Steward. “While we often feature new acquisitions throughout our galleries, this seemed an auspicious moment to unveil a number of outstanding works of art in a special installation offering surprising insights and juxtapositions.”

Faces and Facets is divided into four thematic sections: “Assemblage” examines how  the disparate elements of a work of art can be as meaningful as the final configuration; “Faces and Facets” traces the varying ways that “portraits”—whether of a person or an object—both shape and are shaped by the viewer’s understanding of the world; “Revealing and Concealing” ponders the narratives, visual layers and data that are alternately encoded or exposed in works of art; and “Symmetry” plays with the idea of how balance, regularity, and repetition can either offer pleasing compositions or suggest the opposite—asymmetry and disorder—to achieve a particular effect.

About the Princeton University Art Museum

Founded in 1882, the Princeton University Art Museum is one of the leading university art museums in the country. From the founding gift of a collection of porcelain and pottery, the collections have grown to over 80,000 works of art that range from ancient to contemporary art and concentrate geographically on the Mediterranean regions, Western Europe, China, the United States and Latin America.

Committed to advancing Princeton’s teaching and research missions, the Art Museum serves as a gateway to the University for visitors from around the world. The Museum is intimate in scale yet expansive in scope, offering a respite from the rush of daily life, a revitalizing experience of extraordinary works of art and an opportunity to delve deeply into the study of art and culture.

The Princeton University Art Museum is located at the heart of the Princeton campus, a short walk from the shops and restaurants of Nassau Street. Admission is free. Museum hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.; and Sunday 1 to 5 p.m. The Museum is closed Mondays and major holidays.