Terra Collection-in-Residence: Ackland Art Museum’s Triple Take

Through the Terra Collection-in-Residence program, objects from the Terra Foundation’s collection are loaned for extended periods to invited academic museums in the United States and global cultural institutions with solid connections to universities.

The Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is a vital teaching resource for the university, using its collection to empower audiences to become close to the art. March 2023 marked the beginning of the Ackland’s long-term loan of four Terra Foundation Collection paintings: Girl in a Red Dress, c. 1835, by Ammi Phillips (American, 1788–1865); Sylvester, 1914, by Robert Henri (American, 1865–1929); Denstedt, 1917, by Lyonel Feininger (German American,1871–1956); and Between Acts, 1935, by Archibald J. Motley, Jr. (American, 1891–1981).

In the first year of the loan, these paintings were installed among works in the museum’s permanent collection, creating connections that resonated with the Ackland’s visitors—primarily university students, but also local K–12 audiences. The museum’s curators, in their efforts to bolster engagement with school-age audiences, discovered that the Henri and Phillips portraits sparked nuanced conversations around identity, which led to a significant increase in visits by local schoolchildren in 2023 compared to 2022.

“One of the discoveries we made was how advantageous it was to have portraits of children in our collection. Not only does it amplify the types of portraiture that we can exhibit, but there was a particular resonance with our K–12 visitors, an area that we’ve been trying very hard to build back up, as it really trailed off during the pandemic,” said Carolyn Allmendinger, Interim Director and Director of Education and Interpretation, Ackland Art Museum. “We were aware of this before we made our request for loans, but it really came into focus as we lived with the paintings through the first year.”

The impact of the Terra Foundation loans has inspired conversations about innovative ways to use the objects in the years to come. Beginning in January 2025, the team at Ackland will present an exhibition titled Triple Take: Dialogues with the Terra Collection-in-Residence, featuring all four objects. This exhibition will consist of three distinct installations, each taking a different approach. The first, titled “Archibald Motley, Jr.: License to Look,” will closely examine the composition, visual devices, and the viewer’s role in Motley’s painting Between Acts, along with works from Ackland’s collection. This installation will focus on the themes of looking and being looked at. The second installation, “Lyonel Feininger: Shapes of a Career,” will provide a monographic presentation of Feininger’s work. It will include his painting Denstedt and a selection of his works on paper from Ackland’s collection and as well as from loans from other museums in the area.

Finally, “Ammi Phillips and Robert Henri: What is in a Name?,” will explore the two portraits of children from the Terra Foundation—one subject whose name is known and the other whose name is unknown. This installation will take a subject-matter approach, concentrating on the known and unknown identities of the children in the Henri and Phillips portraits, as well as other portraits of children from the Ackland’s collection. It will pose questions about how knowing or not knowing the name of the person portrayed influences the viewer’s understanding of the subject’s life.

Setting Ackland’s collection in dialogue with the Terra Foundation objects helps reveal expanded narratives of American art and generates new ideas that reflect the range and complexity of American art and its histories. In addition, not only does Triple Take allow visitors to experience Ackland’s collection and the Terra Foundation’s objects in new ways, but it also enables the museum staff to shift their usual practices of curating. By exploring varied topics under the same umbrella of close looking, the exhibition involves all three curators and the director of education and interpretation at the museum. This unique opportunity highlights Ackland’s deep collection and emphasizes different methods of interpreting and reinterpreting works of art.

Triple Take: Dialogues with the Terra Collection-in-Residence opens on January 31, 2025, and is on view through May 11, 2025, at the Ackland Art Museum at the University of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.