W&L’s Staniar Gallery Presents Dan Estabrook’s ‘Dumb Skulls and Souvenirs’ The solo exhibition opens Oct. 19 with an artist’s talk on Nov. 3.

Dan Estabrook, The Thief (2018), cut tintype

Washington and Lee University’s Staniar Gallery is pleased to present “Dumb Skulls and Souvenirs,” a solo exhibition by Dan Estabrook. The exhibit will be on view from Oct. 19 through Dec. 11. Estabrook will also give an artist’s talk at 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 3 in Wilson Concert Hall in the Lenfest Center for the Arts.

The exhibition and reception events are free and open to the public.

Estabrook’s work features 19th-century photographic processes alongside drawing, painting and sculpture. The works in the “Dumb Skulls” series are ambrotypes on black glass, while the works in “Souvenirs” are tintypes, some of them incised or altered. Through these practices, Estabrook explores themes of memory, loss and the subjective nature of historical narrative.

“Using 19th-century techniques and celebrating their flaws and failures, I make seemingly anonymous photographs in order to reimagine a more personal history of photography, seen from a 21st-century perspective,” Estabrook said. “With these processes, I can create my own ‘found photos’ — highly personal objects in which to hide my own secrets and stories. I am not interested in simply recreating the past; instead, I wish to make contemporary work inspired by the ever-growing gap between what we know of the past and how we understand the present.”

Estabrook earned his bachelor’s degree at Harvard University and his master’s degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He has taught and lectured across the United States, with recent solo and group exhibitions at the Penland Gallery (Bakersville, North Carolina), the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art (Charleston, South Carolina), the University of Kentucky Art Museum and Daniel Cooney Fine Art (New York City). Estabrook has received grants, awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts and the Peter S. Reed Foundation, among others. His first monograph, “Forever & Never,” was published by Artsuite in 2025.

For more information about the 2026-27 exhibition and programming schedule, visit the Staniar Gallery’s website.

Staniar Gallery is located on the second floor of Wilson Hall, in Washington and Lee University’s Lenfest Center for the Arts. When the campus is open to the public, gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information, please call 540-458-8861.