More than 100 of the Academy Art Museum’s closest supporters and donors gathered on October 22, to celebrate the centennial of visionary artist Robert Rauschenberg. The intimate evening—filled with champagne, storytelling, and reflection—honored one of the most influential figures in modern art and previewed the Museum’s upcoming exhibition, Rauschenberg 100: New Connections, opening December 11. 

Guests enjoyed a Rauschenberg-inspired cake and heartfelt remarks from Don Saff, Rauschenberg’s longtime collaborator and Easton, Maryland resident, who shared personal stories from their creative partnership. Curator Lee Glazer offered an inside look at the exhibition and screened a short preview of 100 Foot Photo, the documentary chronicling the making of Rauschenberg’s monumental 100-foot work Chinese Summerhall. 

A centerpiece of the upcoming exhibition, Chinese Summerhall is among the artist’s most fragile and rarely exhibited works. The Rauschenberg Foundation is highly selective in granting loans of such magnitude due to the artwork’s sensitivity and size. 

“Now I’m really letting you in on some insider information,” shared Charlotte Potter Kasic, Museum Director. “This exhibition almost didn’t happen if it weren’t for our tenacious curator. These works require an extraordinary level of care to display, and being approved for a loan of this caliber is a true testament to our team’s professionalism and our donors’ commitment. We are so fortunate to share such significant works with our community.” 

In concert with the Rauschenberg Foundation’s global centennial celebration, the Academy Art Museum proudly represents the Eastern Shore among museums worldwide honoring

The Academy Art Museum (AAM) will honor the 100th birthday of iconic American artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) with Rauschenberg 100: New Connections, opening December 11, 2025. Presented in partnership with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the exhibition joins an international roster of institutions commemorating the artist’s centenary. 

“Rauschenberg’s belief that art could nurture empathy and cross-cultural connection is as vital today as it was in his lifetime,” said Charlotte Potter Kasic, Director of the Academy Art Museum. “We are honored to celebrate his centennial in partnership with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and to share this story from the Eastern Shore to the world.” 

At its center is Chinese Summerhall (1982)—a one-hundred-foot-long color photograph created in collaboration with Graphicstudio at the University of South Florida. Rarely exhibited due to its monumental scale and fragility, the work will be on loan from the Foundation and shown alongside more than twenty Rauschenberg works from the Museum’s permanent collection. 

“Something happened to painting around 1950,” wrote critic Leo Steinberg. That “something” was Rauschenberg: an artist whose openness to popular culture, everyday materials, and cross-disciplinary collaboration redefined what art could be. Rauschenberg 100: New Connections captures that spirit of experimentation and exchange, focusing on the artist’s groundbreaking 1982 trip to China and his creative partnership with Donald Saff, who has lived and worked on Maryland’s Eastern Shore since 1991. 

The exhibition will also feature the premiere of 100 Foot Photo, a new film directed by Matt Kresling and presented at the Chesapeake Film Festival. The documentary chronicles the making of Chinese Summerhall, with commentary from Saff and other collaborators. 

Local Connections, Global Impact 

In 1982, Rauschenberg and Saff traveled across China, photographing everyday moments—from back alleys to rural landscapes. Using 52 of those negatives, Rauschenberg composed Chinese Summerhall with assistance from George Holzer, a researcher at Graphicstudio, who oversaw the intricate printing process.

Rauschenberg’s connection to Maryland continues through Saff, who with his wife, Ruth, donated 28 Studies for Chinese Summerhall to the Museum in 2001. Their contributions and first-hand insight have deepened AAM’s role in preserving and contextualizing Rauschenberg’s legacy. 

Rauschenberg 100: New Connections invites audiences to explore the artist’s global vision while celebrating how his pioneering projects were grounded in collaboration—including those with artists and makers connected to Maryland’s vibrant creative community. 

From China to the World 

Rauschenberg’s 1982 journey laid the foundation for the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI)—a seven-year, Saff-led project that brought the artist to politically isolated nations including Cuba, the Soviet Union, East Germany, and Tibet. ROCI sought to foster global dialogue through art, culminating in a landmark exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in 1991. 

Exhibition Details 

Raschenberg 100: New Connections 

On view December 11, 2025 – May 2026 

Opening Reception: December 12, 2025 

Curated by Lee Glazer, Academy Art Museum 

Supported by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation 

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About the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation 

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation builds on the legacy of artist Robert Rauschenberg, emphasizing his belief that artists can drive social change. Rauschenberg sought to act in the “gap” between art and life, valuing chance and collaboration across disciplines. As such, the Foundation celebrates new and even untested ways of thinking. 

About Rauschenberg 100 

Robert Rauschenberg’s (1925-2008) strong conviction that engagement with art can nurture people’s sensibilities as individuals, community members, and citizens was key to his ethos. The Centennial celebrations seek to allow audiences familiar with him and those encountering the artist for the first time to form fresh perspectives about his artwork. 

A year of global activities and exhibitions in honor of Rauschenberg’s Centennial reexamines the artist through a contemporary lens, highlighting his enduring influence on generations of artists and advocates for social progress. The Centennial’s activation of the artist’s legacy promotes cross-disciplinary explorations and creates opportunities for critical dialogue.

About the Academy Art Museum 

Founded in 1958, the Academy Art Museum is the Eastern Shore’s leading cultural institution, accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. It combines the dynamism of an ambitious contemporary art museum with the intimacy of a community space. With five working studios, a 24,000 sq. ft. facility, and innovative programs including a robust artist-in-residence initiative and major commissions for its soaring atrium, the Museum is a destination for artists, scholars, collectors, and families alike. 

 The Academy Art Museum is pleased to announce a special three-part lecture and screening series led by Loretta Howard, Co-founder of On This Spot, an acclaimed nonprofit project that brings women artists’ stories to life through short-form documentary videos.

Over three consecutive Thursday evenings, audiences will experience short archival films that illuminate the lives and legacies of women artists who shaped the artistic and cultural landscape of the postwar era. Through scholarly and entertaining biographical storytelling, Howard will guide audiences into the worlds where these artists lived and worked, dreamed and built communities that fueled their creativity.

The series will highlight women artists represented in the AMA collection, offering fresh insight into their work through a biographical and feminist lens, with selected artworks on view. Artists Martha Diamond, Nancy Graves, Grace Hartigan, Kiki Smith, Pat Steir and Susan Weil will be amongst those discussed. 

On This Spot

On This Spot NYC is a nonprofit dedicated to reclaiming the histories of women artists who shaped New York City’s cultural landscape. Through short-form documentary videos, interactive maps, and public programs, the organization highlights where pioneering artists lived and worked, bringing their often-overlooked contributions to life. Founded by gallerist Loretta Howard and producer Tony Ganz, On This Spot NYC has created more than 50 films since its 2023 launch, making women’s stories in art history widely available to audiences around the world.

Dates:
Thursday evenings — October 16, 23, & 30 at 5:30pm

Cost for three-lecture series:
$45 members / $60 non-members

This program is ideal for anyone curious about art, women’s history, and diverse voices—those who love stories that inspire and connect across generations.

For more information or to register, please visit the website or contact [email protected].

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About the Academy Art Museum

Founded in 1958, the Academy Art Museum is the Eastern Shore’s leading cultural institution, accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. It combines the dynamism of an ambitious contemporary art museum with the intimacy of a community space. With five working studios, a 24,000 sq. ft. facility, and innovative programs including a robust artist-in-residence initiative and major commissions for its soaring atrium, the Museum is a destination for artists, scholars, collectors, and families alike.

The Academy Art Museum proudly presents its first international exhibition, To the Edge of Your World by internationally recognized Dutch Irish artist Anita Groener. The exhibition will be open to the public from August 16 to October 26. An opening reception will be held on August 16  from 2 to 4 PM. 

Using humble materials – twigs, cardboard, cut paper – Groener explores themes of loss, displacement, and resilience. Her intricately constructed sculptures and drawings reflect on the shared human impact of migration, conflict, and remembrance, shaped in part by her travels through the American South and global regions affected by upheaval.

In 2022, Groener, accompanied by John Relman, one of the United States’ most prominent civil rights lawyers, travelled across the American South. With Relman as her guide, she visited historic sites important to the Civil Rights Movement: museums, trails, and memorials in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama. America’s unfinished struggle for equality and justice made starkly tangible on this journey profoundly informed Groener’s most recent sculpture and drawings, adding a new aspect to her ongoing engagement with the world’s past decade of war and upheaval in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa, and elsewhere.

To the Edge of Your World is accompanied by Shelter, a new animated film made in collaboration with documentary filmmaker Matt Kresling and the Talbot Interfaith Shelter (TIS) in Easton. Based on interviews relating individual stories of people facing hardship and their determination to rebuild their lives, Shelter addresses the urgent social and political realities of homelessness and celebrates the transformative work of TIS. The video resonates with the exhibition’s themes, displacement, belonging, and the fragile architecture of memory.

The world premiere of Shelter will be on August 16, with a special showing on August 17 with the Talbot Interfaith Shelter. 

One of Ireland’s most distinguished artists, Anita Groener, has recently shown her work at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris, France; the Museum Rijswijk in The Hague, Netherlands; and Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda, Ireland. In 2005, she was elected a member of Aosdána, the official association of Ireland’s preeminent artists and cultural producers.

For more information, visit AcademyArtMuseum.org. 

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About Academy Art Museum

As the premiere art museum on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Academy Art Museum presents high-quality exhibitions and a full range of art classes for visitors of all ages. Past exhibitions have featured artists such as James Turrell, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Pat Steir and Richard Diebenkorn. The permanent collection focuses on works on paper by American and European artists from four centuries including recent acquisitions by Graciela Iturbide and Zanele Muholi. Arts educational programs range from life drawing lessons to digital art instruction, and include lunchtime and cocktail hour concerts, lectures and special art events, as well as a Fall Craft Show, now in its 27th year. AAM also provides arts education to school children from the region and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. To continue the institutional movement of offering free public programming and to give barrier-free access to art, AAM eliminated admission fees in 2023.

 The Academy Art Museum is thrilled to announce the appointment of Matthew Moore as its new Director of Education. An accomplished artist and dedicated educator, Matt brings a unique blend of creative vision, academic leadership, and deep community engagement to this important role.

As Director of Education, Matt will guide the strategic direction of the Museum’s education programs, overseeing K–12 initiatives, adult education offerings, and public programs designed to ignite and sustain curiosity for art throughout our community.

Matthew Moore’s own artistic practice reflects his thoughtful approach to exploring history, place, and collective memory. His photographic work examines patterns in the built environment that reveal the ways in which historical narratives are constructed and remembered. His recent series, Post-Socialist Landscapes, has been the focus of solo exhibitions at the Gormley Gallery in Baltimore, Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, and right here at the Academy Art Museum. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, The Daily Mail, Atlas Obscura, Musee, BmoreArt, Lenscratch, Deep Baltic, and more.

Matt holds a BFA in Photography from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit and an MFA in Photography from Georgia State University. He is currently a tenured Professor at Anne Arundel Community College and has built a reputation as an innovative educator and mentor who inspires students to think critically and creatively about art and its role in the world.

“Matt’s deep commitment to both teaching and artistic practice makes him an exceptional fit for this role,” said Charlotte Potter Kasic, Director of the Academy Art Museum. “His experience in higher education, passion for fostering meaningful connections with our diverse audiences, and his ties to the Eastern Shore community will be invaluable as we continue to grow and expand our impact.”

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About Academy Art Museum

As the premiere art museum on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Academy Art Museum presents high-quality exhibitions and a full range of art classes for visitors of all ages. Past exhibitions have featured artists such as James Turrell, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Pat Steir and Richard Diebenkorn. The permanent collection focuses on works on paper by American and European artists from four centuries including recent acquisitions by Graciela Iturbide and Zanele Muholi. Arts educational programs range from life drawing lessons to digital art instruction, and include lunchtime and cocktail hour concerts, lectures and special art events. AAM also provides arts education to school children from the region and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. To continue the institutional movement of offering free public programming and to give barrier-free access to art, AAM eliminated admission fees in 2023.

In 2025, the Academy Art Museum will take a thoughtful pause from its annual Craft Show. This is a moment of transformation for the Museum as we build a new five-year strategic plan, focus our energy on breaking ground on the Freeman Annex and Hormel Research Center and give our new team the time and space to acclimate and establish a sustainable annual cadence. This pause will allow us to do important internal work and plan thoughtfully for the future.

We know this news will come as a disappointment, especially to those who have been part of this tradition for many years. As an artist myself — traditionally trained in glassblowing — I understand the time, labor, and love that go into an artistic practice. Please know this decision was not made lightly. This show holds deep significance for artists, collectors, volunteers, families, and supporters of handmade work, and this pause is our way of honor that dedication while we continue to grow with thoughtfulness and care.

We are grateful for the support our members have given to the Craft Show over the years. While we are pausing the show this fall, we remain committed to celebrating craft through our related current and upcoming exhibitions, including Anne Lindberg’s seen and unseen, Piper Shepard’s Field, Voids and Translations: Works on Paper, and the upcoming More Clay.

There are many reasons to visit the Academy Art Museum — from our free admission to world-class exhibitions, or perhaps you’ll consider taking one of our hands-on classes. Additionally, we are excited to announce our major exhibition opening later this year: Rauschenberg at 100, celebrating the centennial of his birth and his connection to this region.

Thank you for your patience and understanding during this time of transition. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out, and we invite you to participate in the survey, via the button below to help shape the museum‘s future.

Get ready, Eastern Shore—on Saturday, May 3, the Academy Art Museum is shaking things up with what promises to be the boldest gala of the year. This year’s celebration trades the traditional gala for an unexpected twist: a massive industrial warehouse just north of Easton. For one night only, the raw space will be transformed into a sleek, city-loft-style venue that’s all about modern edge and creative flair.

The inspiration? The razor-sharp realism of photorealist legend Richard Estes, whose exhibition Urban Landscapes, opens at the Academy on May 1. His intricate urban scenes spark a sense of connection and astonishing detail—setting the tone for a night that blurs the line between art and experience.

Setting the sonic mood is none other than local music legend Kentavius Jones, debuting an original soundscape composed exclusively for the event. Expect grooves that echo with the energy of city streets, crafted to perfectly complement Estes’ visual world.

It wouldn’t be a true Academy Art Museum night without incredible food. Gourmet by the Bay returns with a menu as bold and creative as the art on display—yes, you’ll want to Instagram it before you take a bite.

“We wanted this year’s gala to feel like a turning point—a moment that reflects the scale of our ambition and the energy of our community,” said Charlotte Potter Kasic, Director of the Academy Art Museum. “It’s not just a celebration of what we’ve done, but of everything we’re about to do. This is a party with purpose.”

More than a night of music, art, and conversation, this gala fuels the museum’s mission: supporting dynamic exhibitions, hands-on classes for all ages, and year-round programming—while keeping admission free for everyone.

So mark your calendar, put on something fabulous, and prepare for an evening that’s as visionary as the art that inspired it.

For information and to purchase tickets, visit here.