Color Me Calico: A Taste for Prints & Parties
ON VIEW THROUGH OCTOBER 2026
This new exhibit invites visitors on a vibrant journey through the consumption of printed cotton textiles of 19th-century America. From the simplicity of plain muslins to the intricate patterns of chintz and calicos, this exhibit will explore America’s every-growing taste for colorful and affordable printed cottons. Garments and textiles exhibited will highlight the technological advances that facilitated the production of colorful designs on cotton by the mile, helping to establish cotton calico as the fabric of common people in the 19th-century.
The introduction of cotton calico fabrics to Hodinöhsö:ni’ communities forever altered their traditional regalia. Exhibited Hodinöhsö:ni’ garments will provide guests with the opportunity to explore how this community’s sartorial identity evolved across the 19th century, ushered on by the trade of calico cottons, and attempts to both assimilate into and resist Western influence in dress.
This exhibit will display garments of cotton calico worn by everyday Americans, providing visitors a tangible sense of 19th-century middleclass fashionable life. The economy of calico as affordable and accessible, along with its colorful appeal, will be highlighted using extant originals from the Bruce & Susan Greene Costume Collection, supplemented by lending institutions.
Stay tuned for more information about this exhibit and its exciting programming!
Everybody's Going to be There: The American Rural Cemetery Movement
ON VIEW THROUGH OCTOBER 2025
The concept of a rural cemetery challenges the notion of burial spaces as being gloomy or frightening places. Rather, the rural cemetery acts as a social center with a living ecosystem – a place for scenic respite.
This new exhibit explores how 19th-century Americans managed public health concerns, developed a new appreciation for green space and wildlife, and ensured their memorialization in a newly established public space: the rural cemetery. “Everybody’s Going to be There” presents a wide variety of fine wildlife art, maps, memorial art, natural animal and geological specimens, mourning jewelry and stationery, and cemetery tourism ephemera of the 19th-century.
Perceived Realities: Wildlife, Land, and Myth
ON VIEW NOW
New to the John L. Wehle Gallery as of February 2024 is a semi-permanent exhibit titled Perceived Realities: Wildlife, Land, and Myth. This new exhibit features some of the finest pieces of sporting and wildlife art collected by John L. Wehle himself.
Visitors will explore works by notable names such as John James Audubon, Bruno Liljefors, Carl Rungius, and Bob Kuhn and their elevation of animal art into the realm of wildlife fine art. The exhibit also delves into the changing landscape of 19th-century Rochester, NY, through oil painting, and invites visitors to reconsider the concept of the American cowboy.
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