EXTRODINARY EXHIBITS
Rachel Gloria Adams and Ryan Adams
The More I Wonder, The More I Love
Ongoing
Rachel Gloria Adams and Ryan Adams will transform the Worcester Art Museum’s Salisbury Hall with a vibrant new mural. The artists blend their distinct styles—Ryan’s signature “gem” lettering and Rachel’s quilting-inspired abstraction—into a dynamic geometric design that will envelop the space. Line drawings with iconography alluding to their family will punctuate the mural, as if embroidered on an heirloom patchwork quilt, creating moments that reward close looking and contemplation.
The title, The More I Wonder, The More I Love, will feature prominently in the mural and embodies the core sentiment behind the work, which is inspired by the artists’ young daughters. Having each grown up as one of few Black children in predominantly white environments, the artists reflect, “the stereotypical expectations of what was expected from you as a young Black man/woman created these invisible boundaries around us that restricted us from partaking in certain activities and seeing ourselves as capable of doing anything we dreamed of. We are trying our best to show our girls a world outside of those invisible barriers, when they are free to wonder and explore all that life can offer.”
The title is inspired by a quote from the novel The Color Purple (1982) by Alice Walker: “I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, he say, the more I love.” Alluding to curiosity as a path to empathy, the mural’s title is an apt invitation to open-mindedness as visitors travel through the space and into the Museum’s galleries filled with art from around the world and across millennia.
Collecting Tapestries at the Worcester Art Museum
Through July 27, 2025
Tapestries: intricately designed, meticulously crafted, and often staggering in size. Delve into the history of tapestries as an art form, the methods by which they were created, the fascinating stories that brought them to the Worcester Art Museum, and their important role as a source of artistic creativity and innovation across disparate cultures and time periods. From the Vault features nearly 30 works—rarely on view due to their sensitivity to light—including 12 large-format tapestries and tapestry fragments spanning Antiquity to the present day.
Among the works on view is the massive, remarkably detailed 16th-century Flemish Last Judgment tapestry. One of the most significant Renaissance tapestries in America, it measures over 12 feet tall and more than 26 feet wide and will be on view for the first time in nearly a decade. Another highlight, Jean Lurçat’s Harvest Time (1937), marks a revival of tapestries as a medium for modern expression through its bold forms and vivid colors. This exhibition also marks the museum debut of dream disk (2024), a new acquisition by LA-based artist Diedrick Brackens (b. 1989), who is known for his intricate textile art that explores themes of identity, race, and queerness through the narratives he weaves.
This exhibition is curated by Delaney Keenan, Assistant Curator of European Art, in collaboration with Claire C. Whitner, the Museum’s Director of Curatorial Affairs and James A. Welu Curator of European Art
Reflections of a Changing Japan: The Evolution of Shin Hanga
Through June 29, 2025
Delve into an era of change in Japan, when the past and the present blended to create an art form that was both distinctly Japanese and internationally resonant. Shin Hanga, or “new prints,” emerged in Japan in the early 1900s as a resurgence of the styles and techniques of traditional ukiyo-e printmaking from the Edo period. As Japan industrialized and “Westernized” during the early 20th century, Shin Hanga artists began to revive this former style while embracing new artistic techniques and subject matter. Reflections of a Changing Japan: The Evolution of Shin Hanga explores the rise and fall of this pivotal movement in Japanese printmaking, examining inspirations from traditional subjects, the influence of international travel and Western artists, and the waning interest in the genre after World War II.
The exhibition comprises 35 artworks, many of which are on view for the first time, created in the first half of the 20th century through 1959, including works by Yoshida Hiroshi and Yoshida Toshi, who gave a lecture at the Worcester Art Museum in 1954. This exhibition is curated by Fiona Collins-Rosedahl, Assistant Curator of Asian Art.
Reflections of a Changing Japan: The Evolution of Shin Hanga is generously supported by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Fletcher Foundation and the Japan Foundation.
The related catalogue, Japanese Woodblock Prints 1680-1980: Worcester Art Museum, is supported by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation and the Japan Foundation.