Ahead of U.S. 1’s full Fall Arts Preview in next week’s issue, here is an overview of exhibitions in progress and opening soon in the region’s galleries and museums. Access to these galleries is free for all.
Anne Reid ‘72 Gallery
The art gallery of Princeton Day School presents “Ariel in NJ,” featuring textiles, performance artifacts, design and wearable works by the late Ariel Ruvinsky ’08. An opening reception takes place Friday, September 12, from 5 to 7 p.m., and the show continues through December 5.
Ruvinsky grew up in central New Jersey and graduated from Princeton Day School. She received her MFA in fiber art from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BA in fine art and history of art from Goldsmiths, University of London. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions in London, Brooklyn, and New Jersey, including at Latymer Projects, Greenpoint Gallery, and the Straube Center.
Under the pseudonym Ariel in NJ, Ruvinsky found success in the fashion world, designing shoes, knitwear, clothing, and accessories that merged bold aesthetics with intentional craftsmanship. In 2024, musician Chappell Roan wore Ruvinsky’s shoes for a Rolling Stone interview, showcasing the distinctive spirit of her designs and their resonance in contemporary culture.
Collaboration was fundamental to Ruvinsky’s practice. She worked extensively with writer Robin Grearson, pattern maker Calli Roche, and many other creatives across the country and globe, fostering connections that enriched her artistic vision.
This exhibition brings together in-progress and completed designs that document and embody these collaborations, offering visitors a glimpse into Ruvinsky’s world of restless, passionate study and wonder. Her remarkable legacy invites us to consider the value of curiosity as a form of care, connection, and engagement with the world around us.
Anne Reid ’72 Gallery, Princeton Day School, 650 Great Road, Princeton. www.pds.org.
Artists’ Gallery
The gallery in Lambertville presents “Marking Time,” an exhibition featuring new works by Alan J. Klawans and Andrew Werth. The show runs from Thursday, September 4, through Sunday, October 5. A free reception with the artists takes place Saturday, September 6, from 4 to 6 p.m.
For “Marking Time,” Klawans delves into his extensive archive of travel photographs, transforming the familiar into something new. While his past work has focused on everyday details like manhole covers and street signage, this exhibition highlights his evocative photographic “portraits” of flowers, each with stylized coloration and cropping, offering a unique reflection on memory and the passage of time.
Andrew Werth, on the other hand, marks time through a meditative process, meticulously filling his canvases with thousands of hand-painted, intricate curves. His abstract acrylic paintings, often created while focusing on his breath or music, achieve remarkable luminosity and depth through subtle color transitions. Drawing on his background as a software developer, Werth’s paintings for this exhibition include mathematical elements such as tessellations, tilings, mandalas, and other geometric configurations.
Klawans has been with Artists’ Gallery since 2000 and has exhibited his prints at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Print Center of Philadelphia. Prior to becoming a full-time artist, he worked as a graphic designer, printmaker, and art director.
Werth has exhibited regularly throughout New Jersey, New York, and Philadelphia for more than 20 years. He has formal degrees in computer engineering and information networking from Carnegie Mellon University and later self-directed an arts education from many of the arts institutions in New York City.
Artists’ Gallery, 18 Bridge Street, Lambertville. www.lambertvillearts.com.
Arts Council of Princeton
Opening receptions take place Saturday, September 6, from 3 to 5 p.m. for three new exhibitions at the Arts Council of Princeton. All three shows remain on view through October 4.
“Tarang … a wave of joyful emotion” explores the waves of change, emotion, and identity through the art of three female artists of Indian origin. Divvya Atrii focuses on traditional themes, using folk motifs to connect with heritage with a very contemporary style. Hetal Mistry’s ethereal landscapes using mixed media reflect her internal waves of emotion. Sejal Krishnan, an abstract artist, uses color and form to convey emotions and personal narratives.
“Scenes From Home” features paintings by Ellie Wyeth. In a statement, the artist writes: “Several years ago, I conducted a study on two art genres: Symbolism and Surrealism. I created a body of work intended to portray my sense of self within my home environment.
“Using animals and birds as icons in various interiors, I began by visualizing myself in familiar domestic settings that feel private and personal. I aimed to create a safe space, using light and shadow, color, and detail.
“The symbolism of the animals and birds plays a significant role in expressing my state of mind at the time. Their presence serves as both a safety net and an interpreter between my physical self and emotional experience.”
The Charles Evans Scholars Exhibition is an annual celebration of the artistic achievements of exceptional Princeton High School students.
Arts Council of Princeton, 102 Witherspoon Street, Princeton. www.artscouncilofprinceton.org.
Gourgaud Gallery
The gallery in Cranbury Township hosts a solo art show by Toby B. Ehrlich from September 7 through 25. Openings take place Sunday, September 7, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m., and Wednesday, September 10, from noon to 2 p.m.
Ehrlich has been using her creative ability most of her life. As a child, she struggled with reading due to a form of dyslexia that was not diagnosed until she was 13. During this time, art and music served as outlets. Throughout high school, she painted and was a humanities major at Hosfstra University, where she focused on painting, sculpture, and art history.
She enjoys capturing movement in her work and experimenting with a variety of media. Many of her pieces depict feelings of water, nature, music, and people. She continues to study art locally and has taught art to older adults.
Gourgaud Gallery, Cranbury Township Town Hall, 23 North Main Street, Cranbury.
Lambertville Public Library
“Vanishing Wildwood Neon,” an exhibit by Mark Stermer, is on view at the newly renovated library through October 8.
Stermer has been capturing vanishing architecture and specializing in night photography for 50 years. In 2004 he began a series of night shots of the bars, boardwalks, and beachside motels of the Jersey Shore and took interest in the unique modernist architecture of Wildwood with its Jetsons gone Hawaii style. More than 40 large-format prints are on display.
Lambertville Public Library, 6 Lilly Street, Lambertville.
Lewis Center for the Arts
The Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University presents spinnerets, an exhibition of new work by 2024-26 Princeton Arts Fellow Gi (Ginny) Huo. Her work considers the legacies of belief systems and their geopolitical impact through mapping narratives of land and sites, tracing Huo’s lineages and religious upbringing.
The exhibition is on view in the Hurley Gallery at the Lewis Arts complex September 9 through October 24 with an opening reception on Tuesday, September 9, at 4:30 p.m.
The title of the exhibition refers to the organ of the spider that creates the silk. Inspired by survival techniques found in nature, such as spiders’ camouflaging, trapping prey, and ballooning, a method spider’s use to float distances on currents of air, the work draws parallels practiced in human form. With various art mediums such as drawings, steel sculptures, archival photographs, and 16mm film, Huo’s work navigates through perception/truth, translation/interpretation, and the systematic mechanisms of selling a fantasy.
Huo is an artist and educator thinking on the intentions of what people believe, the legacies of religious systems, and their geopolitical impact. Huo works across mediums in drawing, sculpture, video, artists books, photography, and printmaking. As a Princeton Arts Fellow, Huo has taught undergraduate studio courses on public art, sculptural studies of objects and myths in nature, and experimental sculptural book making.
Hurley Gallery, Lewis Arts complex, Princeton University. arts.princeton.edu.
Princeton University Art Museum
The long-awaited opening of the new Princeton University Art Museum is set for Friday, October 31, with a 24-hour open house event from 5 p.m. Saturday until 5 p.m. Sunday.
Meanwhile, at the museum’s auxiliary Art@Bainbridge gallery “Extract / Abstract” by Hamilton-based artist Léni Paquet-Morante remains on view through November 9. The show features her recent works that reimagine landscape painting.
Next, from November 22 through March 15, 2026, is “Jordan Eagles: Centrifuge,” which features a powerful array of artwork that challenges discrimination against and the stigmatization of queer individuals. Through the lens of blood donation guidelines, Eagles explores the aesthetics and ethics of blood as an artistic medium, advocates for equality, and inspires dialogue on the harmful effects of identity-based policies.
Art@Bainbridge, 158 Nassau Street, Princeton. artmuseum.princeton.edu
Princeton University Library
“Forms and Function: The Splendors of Global Book Making,” curated by Martin Heijdra, director of Princeton University Library’s East Asian Library, showcases the diversity and beauty of global book making, focusing on three major traditions of the book form: codex, East Asian, and pothī. It opens Wednesdays, September 10, and remains on view through December 7.
The exhibition features treasures from some of Princeton’s lesser-known collections, as well as items from its renowned collections of Western, Islamic, East Asian, and Mesoamerican manuscripts and printed books. There are also works by modern artists completed in the style of these global traditions.
Ellen and Leonard Milberg Gallery, Firestone Library. library.princeton.edu.
At the Mudd Manuscript Library, “Fashion, Feminism, and Fear: Clothing and Power in the 19th Century,” curated by April C. Armstrong and Emma Paradies, library collections specialists, features late 19th and early 20th century cartoons satirizing women’s fashion at a time when the “New Woman” began to wear pants, tailored jackets, and sportswear and enter traditionally masculine spheres.
The majority of the cartoons showcased in this exhibit are from 1895-1896 and by William H. Walker (1871-1938). Walker contributed frequently to formative American magazines like Life from 1894 to 1922, quickly becoming its leading editorial cartoonist. His fashion-focused political cartoons for Life captured the deep-seated anxieties of the era, implying that women were unfit for the new freedoms they sought. Walker created dozens of illustrations commenting on the “women in pants” phenomenon. These unflattering depictions obscured the perspectives of women’s rights activists by divorcing what they wore from its political context, suggesting they warranted only mockery.
A public opening with the curators is scheduled for Tuesday, September 16, from noon to 2 p.m. The exhibition is on view through April, 2026.
Mudd Manuscript Library, 65 Olden Street, Princeton.
Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie
The Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie invites the public to view “New Jersey Photography Forum — Fall Is in the Air” from Thursday, September 11, to Sunday, October 19. Highlighting the beauty and atmosphere of the autumn season, the 75 photographs in this exhibition capture what fall looks like to the exhibiting photographers. The final day of the show, October 19, will feature a closing reception and “walk & talk” through the galleries with exhibiting photographers from 2 to 4 p.m.
Celebrating 30 years, the New Jersey Photography Forum has grown since its 1995 founding to become the largest and most recognized group of fine art exhibiting photographers in the state. Members come from all regions of New Jersey and represent a wide variety of styles and techniques. Recurring themes in their work and in NJPF’s exhibitions include Nature, Environment, Architecture, People, Abstracts and Culture. Trenton City Last hosted a show by the NJPF in 2019.
Nancy Ori and Mitch Speert served as the curators for this year’s show. Ori, a founder of the New Jersey Photography Forum, served as in-house corporate photographer and manager of video and photography services for Ciba-Geigy Pharmaceuticals and Novartis Pharmaceuticals for 25 years. She has owned New Jersey Media Center since 2001.
Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie, Cadwalader Park, Trenton. ellarslie.org.
West Windsor Arts Council
“Home: The Art of Belonging,” on view through September 20, is a multi-media exhibition that explores themes of inclusion, dignity, and our shared human worth. Incorporating the voices and talents of artists who have experienced homelessness and poverty, the show reflects the personal and collective need for connection. Through a powerful collection of art and poetry, the exhibition illustrates that belonging is more than just a physical space; it is about feeling seen, valued, and included.
West Windsor Arts Council, 952 Alexander Road, West Windsor. www.westwindsorarts.org.
