A Woman of Art and Science

A treasure from the Deerfield Academy Archives will be on exhibit January 28-May 29 at Amherst College’s Mead Art Museum. The exhibition will feature selections from Orra White Hitchcock’s Herbarium, Parvum, Pictum, 1817-1821. Hitchcock taught natural sciences, painting, and drawing at Deerfield Academy from 1813-1818. It was during this time that she created the painted herbarium, a 64-page album of watercolors depicting roughly 175 local flower and grass specimens. The herbarium is based on her husband Edward’s native plant collection. Please visit the museum to see what promises to be a fascinating and stunning display of one of the Connecticut River Valley’s earliest female artists. For more information, visit the Mead Art Museum.