The Alva de Mars Megan Chapel Art Center is Saint Anselm College's gallery for the exhibition of fine art.
Founded in 1967, this facility provides a gracious setting for special exhibitions and houses a permanent collection of artworks. It welcomes the campus and general public with exhibitions throughout the academic year.
Contact
Email:ChapelArtCenter@anselm.edu
Phone: 603-641-7470
Location: Alumni Hall, first floor
Office Hours: Mon.–Fri.: 8:30 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
Gallery Hours (when an exhibit is open)
Tue.–Fri.: 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
Thu. evenings: 4:00–7:00 p.m.
About the Chapel Art Center
The Alva de Mars Megan Chapel Art Center is Saint Anselm College's gallery for the exhibition of fine art. Founded in 1967, this facility provides a gracious setting for special exhibitions and houses a permanent collection of artworks. It welcomes the campus and general public with exhibitions throughout the academic year.
Formerly the college's chapel, the Chapel Art Center maintains a beautifully decorated vaulted ceiling with allegorical lunettes painted by Father Raphael Pfisterer, O.S.B. (1877-1942) and magnificent stained glass windows. Its uniquely serene ambiance and rich historical significance make for the perfect cultural setting. As a center for the promotion of the fine arts, exhibitions coincide with lectures, tours, concerts, and recitals.
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Exhibitions
Current Exhibition
Three Vignettes
On view March 13 - May 9, 2025
Three Vignettes is an innovative spring exhibition series, comprised of small, partially developed sketches—beginning notions—conceived from a more investigative motive and introductory stance. Intended for the distinctively inquisitive viewer, it is our hope these installations will stimulate and develop art interest through approachability and openness, and perhaps even a bit of tentativeness!
Students Select is the first among the three, making its debut for only the second time in our exhibition history. This is a unique opportunity for any student. It might be called “Beginning Curating” or “Lessons in Visual Acuity.”[1]
Regardless of their major or experience, the student selectors draw on all that they have learned in life and college to relate to art and let it inform them. In turn, these students show us how selecting a work of art enlightens and teaches us!
The second and third vignettes are coupled as future exhibitions with a strong relationship to the permanent collection and our exhibition history. Maryanne Grebenstein’s modern illuminations and calligraphy exemplify a true-to-tradition craft and motivation. Like the Chapel Art Center’s 16th-century carpet page of The Presentation of the Lord from the Belgian convent circle of Cornelia van Wulfschkercke, Grebestein upholds and makes new the art of manuscript illumination, with a thoroughly modern hand and inventiveness. Lastly, the Chapel Art Center is planning another Sala/Studiolo experience, following the 2006 focus on understanding works on paper. Based on the Renaissance notion of collecting art for a room—for a place of study and appreciation—works from the permanent collection will form the basis of this selection, with current acquisition proposals and ideas for how to add to the collection!
We hope these selections will enlighten and encourage conversation among campus community members and the public, with new ideas, to build a greater understanding of what the creative spirit does for every person’s life, both within and without.
Our profound thanks go to our student participants in Students Select, to Maryanne Grebenstein for her gracious loans, and to New England Galleries, The Northeast Document Conservation Center, Northeast Painting Conservation, Hirschl and Adler Galleries, New York, and Debra Force Fine Art, New York, for their generous consultations and collaboration.
1See Brian P. Kennedy and “visual literacy.”