WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.- The Norton Museum of Art looks backward and forward with two new exhibitions this summer.

First: Veiled Presence: The Hidden Mothers and Sara VanDerBeek, open June 14 – November 30, 2025, explores the 19th-century photographs of children, and their mothers or caregivers who are elaborately concealed in textiles, obscured by furniture, or blotted or scratched out of the images entirely.

The 19th century was a time of great technological advances — photography was one of those innovations. For the first time, it was possible to create “accurate” portrayals of ordinary people.

But the technology in 19th-century portraiture also had its downsides — long exposure times, ranging from several seconds to as long as 15 minutes, required subjects to remain completely still.

Studio photographers often used braces and posing stands to stabilize sitters, which was particularly challenging when photographing young children. Mothers or caretakers were thus enlisted to hold children to soothe and steady them yet were deliberately camouflaged in the composition. Their presence remains, however, evidenced by their spectral shrouded figures, a disembodied hand, a foot beneath a hem, or even eyes gazing through a latticed chair.

The “hidden mothers” featured in this exhibition — on special loan from the collection of Lee Marks and John C. DePrez Jr. — offer a poignant glimpse into the ways caregiving was visually erased in the Victorian era and how echoes of that erasure still linger today.

Also, part of this exhibition, contemporary artist Sara VanDerBeek engages with the unknown stories embedded in these portraits, employing photography to mediate between past and present, original and reproduction. Her work explores the intertwined histories of women in photography — both as makers and subjects — and lacemaking, drawing from the Norton Collection as well as her own family's ties to Palm Beach County. Complemented by artist Laura Larson’s lyrical writing on “hidden mothers,” VanDerBeek addresses themes of motherhood and grief, reflecting upon the collective memory of women beneath the veil, then and now.

“For more than a century, these figures’ stories have remained untold, shrouded in the photographer’s studio work,” said Lauren Richman, the Norton’s William and Sarah Ross Soter Senior Curator of Photography. “Pairing these vernacular photographs with works by Sara VanDerBeek offers an opportunity to imagine a narrative for these mostly woman subjects, and reflect upon broader themes of visibility, labor, and care, and their contemporary form.”

In Veiled Presence, key figures were obscured from view.

But in the works assembled for a second exhibition opening this summer, artists put their subjects – and viewpoints – on full display.

The Norton turns to its own Collection for The Virtue of Vice: The Art of Social Commentary, open July 12, 2025 — January 4, 2026.

For this exhibition, Regina Palm, the Norton’s Harold and Anne Berkley Smith Senior Curator of Modern Art, has assembled more than 25 works on paper that reflect how artists have drawn upon social commentary as a means of artistic expression.

From the great Spanish artist Francisco de Goya to American Modernist Peggy Bacon, artists have sought to draw attention to the shortcomings of society as well as what might be seen as the underbelly, shining a light on subjects often kept in the shadows despite their timeless relevance.

Whether they addressed poverty and sexual exploitation or drinking and gambling, no topic — no vice — was off-limits to the artists represented in this exhibition.

“Regardless of when or where they worked or what they addressed, artists used equal parts skill and wit in their creations,” Palm noted, marveling at the variety of techniques they employed when dealing with these sensitive and often uncomfortable realities.

Social realists like Bacon and Robert Henri used humor, while others like Goya and Reginald Marsh conveyed their visions through far darker visual narratives.

“No matter the period, technique, or style in which they were created, works on paper, like those seen here, have long served as a vehicle for the satirical, often biting, and sometimes harsh commentary of artists, compelling us all to face realities we would sooner disregard,” Palm said. “Centuries later, many of their observations remain relatable.