The Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College will present the exhibition Menagerie: Animals in Art from the Wellin Museum from Sept. 7 through June 8, 2025. A large survey of artworks and artifacts drawn from the museums collection, Menagerie features representations of real and imagined creatures from across eras and cultures. Organized by the Wellin Museums collections curator Elizabeth Shannon, Ph.D., the exhibition includes works that engage with animal imagery for symbolic, cultural, ceremonial, and religious purposes; as decorative motifs; and to comment, often satirically, upon human relations and events. The exhibition also takes a holistic and environmental approach to animals and encourages visitors to examine the multitude of ways in which wild and domesticated creatures impact our lives, and vice versa. From the ancient world through to the present day, Menagerie demonstrates how humans have utilized animal iconography across all areas of cultural production and encourages a more thoughtful and conscious understanding of the presence of animals in our everyday lives, explains Shannon. The exhibition also draws attention to the scope of the Wellins collection. Selections include objects from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome; Mesoamerican and Andean artifacts; sculptures from Medieval and Renaissance Europe; prints, drawings, and textiles from East Asia; French animalier bronzes; Persian illuminated manuscripts; and global modern and contemporary art. Works by contemporary artists such as Julie Buffalohead, Asad Faulwell, Diego Romero, Ibrahim Said, Shahzia Sikander, and Celia Vasquez Yui, and 18th-century artists such as Francisco de Goya and John James Audubon are presented in the exhibition as ways to explore and question how animals have been seen and depicted by humans throughout time. Hamilton College is in Clinton, N.Y. To learn more, visit www.hamilton.edu.