Akron Woman’s City Club Art Gallery“Cabinets of Curiosity” and Iceland, June 1-July 31, 2025
The title of the June-July AWCC show, by Akron artist Geraldine Kiefer, is "'Curious and Curiouser'": Cabinets of Curiosity and the Fascination of Iceland." It will comprise original drawings; inscribed maps and engravings; shadow box-framed, hand altered prints; and inscribed illustrations from travel and diaristic books (several of which will be on display). The originals date from the late 16th through the 19th centuries, and are in Dr. Kiefer’s collection.
A number of shadow boxes will contain actual objects, namely Icelandic spar and Icelandic lava specimens. Dr. Kiefer takes her lead from the AWCC library's design, with multiple shelves in glass-lined cabinets, to show how the exotic shape and feel of Iceland (as mapped by Icelandic clerics, then remapped by northern European geographers) may have drawn inspiration from the exotic object cabinets assembled first, by Dutch wealthy merchant families and later, by the publications of explorers and writers primarily in northern Europe.
Geraldine Kiefer holds the title Professor Emeritus of Art. A native of Akron, she taught art, art history and art appreciation at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia, for 17 years. The Iceland work displayed here derives from her second sabbatical year, 2019-20, with additions and alterations completed in 2025.
Direct questions to gkiefer@su.edu
Classic Iceland, 2016, colored pencil, pen and ink
