Discover the puzzling history of two of François Boucher's finest works, Arion on the Dolphin and Vertumnus and Pomona. Commissioned in the mid-eighteenth century by Louis XV, these works symbolizing water and earth were originally intended as part of a series representing the Four Elements. Then why were the companion pieces of Fire and Air never executed? Why was the commission abandoned? Reunited for the first time in over twenty years, these works, in conjunction with several loans and other holdings from the Princeton University Art Museum's collection, give consideration to the mysteries surrounding one of France's most successful painters.

François Boucher, French, 1703–1770
Arion on the Dolphin, 1748
Oil on canvas, 86.0 x 135.5 cm
Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund
[y1980-2] (Photo: Bruce M. White)

Inner Sanctum examines Nassau Hall's venerable Faculty Room as the symbolic center of the University, and explores the history and role of the room and its portraits in both reflecting and shaping Princeton's identity. The exhibition, to be held outside the Museum, in the Faculty Room itself, is accompanied by a publication, symposium, and seminar that focus on the ways in which art and spatial environment reinforce and otherwise influence each other in creating meaning.

After Sir Godfrey Kneller, British, 1646–1723
George II, King of England (1683–1760), ca. 1727–1732
Oil on canvas, 242.2 x 153 cm.
Gift of members of the Classes of 1894 and 1919
[PP2] (Photo: Bruce M. White)

Gauguin's Paradise Remembered: The Noa Noa Prints will be on view in the Art Museum from September 25, 2010 to January 2, 2011. The exhibition will focus on the ten revolutionary Noa Noa (Fragrance) woodcuts produced by Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) in Paris during the winter and spring of 1893-94 following the artist's first Tahitian voyage.

Paul Gauguin, French, 1848–1903
Printed by Pola Gauguin
L'univers et créé (The Universe is Created), 1893–94, printed in 1921
Woodcut printed in black and light gray ink on light gray Japanese paper, 26.8 x 43.2 cm.
Museum purchase, Felton Gibbons Fund
[2009-106] (Photo Bruce M. White)

Over the last ten years, “land” and “space” have become pressing subjects for artistic investigation, so much so that we can now speak of a new generation of environmental artists. Nobody's Property will explore this development and probe the reasons for its appearance at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The exhibition features the work of seven artists and two artist-teams: Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, Francis Alÿs, Yael Bartana, Andrea Geyer, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Emre Hüner, Matthew Day Jackson, Lucy Raven, and Santiago Sierra. Using media that range from video and photography to digital animation, performance, and assemblage, these artists parse the economic, geopolitical, and phantasmatic conditions of land and space.