The man, the myth — the image. Two student curators put together an exhibition to showcase the Marquis de Lafayette in his various forms for the college’s bicentennial, with seven episodes of his life and 40 pieces to visualize those episodes on display on Sunday.
Rico Reyes, the collections curator for the college, said that he asked himself and his team from the start of the project, “How do we face the man whose name we use daily?”
With the college art gallery working on the project for nearly three years, Sunday’s unveiling of “Facing Lafayette: Man, Myth, Image” showcased that there’s more to the famous Frenchman than meets the eye.
Lily Sampson ‘27, one of the student curators, said that the exhibit extended beyond Lafayette’s life and history.
“It’s a lot more about the way that people were viewing him through the art that was being put out at different times in his life,” Sampson said.
According to the curators, the exhibit sought to capture the lesser-known stories about the Marquis. The Prisoner of Olmütz, a piece researched by fellow curator Peter Godziela ‘25, depicts Lafayette imprisoned in Austria surrounded by his wife and daughters. The striking painting is quite different from the usual portraits familiar with Lafayette’s image.
“I’ve certainly gotten responses that are like, ‘Wait, Lafayette was in prison?’” Godziela said. “That brings me to my point that we don’t hear about the time of the French Revolution, where he was dealing with a very different political landscape.”
Sampson described the “man” in the exhibit as the humanized parts of the prominent figure during the American Revolution.
“He absolutely led a very fascinating life in terms of everything he got involved with in the United States and France,” Godziela said.
Beyond enlightening audiences on the college namesake’s unknown nuances, Godziela said that the opportunity to be a part of the project taught him “what it really meant to be a curator.”
“I think it really just has to do with being able to engage with people and, more specifically, in this case, the Lafayette community,” Godziela said.
Sampson said that many students don’t get the chance to go into the college archives, making it a special experience for her to take part in producing the exhibit.
She said she joined the project during the spring semester of her freshman year, but Reyes and Godziela had been working on it even before then.
“Peter did a lot of the research around Lafayette and his life, but I did a lot of the research on actual paintings, which was really cool because it was a lot more human history, which is what I’m interested in,” Sampson said.
She added that it was “really rewarding” seeing the exhibit go up.
Facing Lafayette will be on view until Dec. 5th at the Williams Center for the Arts.