In 2018, Peterborough artist Anna Von Mertens, who has long explored the connection between science and art, was invited to the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute to create a research-based exhibit on the topic of her choice.
“It’s all about curiosity. Artists and scientists are both curious; they both want to know the answers to questions like, why is something different? What’s going on there? How did this come to be?” Von Mertens said.
When considering topics for her exhibit, Von Mertens’ passion for astronomy led her to the Harvard College Observatory’s Astronomical Photographic Glass Plate Collection, which, in turn, led her to Henrietta Leavitt, a pioneering 20th-century astronomer.
“I came to this project because I’m fascinated by astronomy, especially cosmology, which is the study of the universe and the grand structure of all things,” Von Mertens said. “As artists, we wonder, how do we orient ourselves within this grand structure? How do we orient ourselves to the familiar?”
The result, a multi-media art exhibit, “The Brightness of Stars: A creative response to the astronomy of Henrietta Leavitt,” is on display at the Dana Center Alcove Galleries at St. Anselm College in Manchester through March 13.
“It was only when I toured the Harvard plate stacks and looked at the glass plates of the stars that I first heard Henrietta Leavitt’s name. Encountering the story of how profound her life was, and how groundbreaking her discovery was, I immediately knew I had found the subject of my exhibition,” Von Mertens said. “A lot of my work is about how art and science are interrelated; they are such similar, overlapping processes.”
Von Mertens learned that Leavitt was one of the “Harvard Astronomical Computers,” a group of female scientists hired at the turn of the 20th century to process data gathered from images of stars captured in the glass plates.
“When I learned about the glass plates and the story of the ‘Harvard Computers,’ I was like — what? A woman made a discovery that launched cosmology, and she worked in a building with all other women, and they accomplished all this incredible work? Nothing could be more interesting to me, and it continues to fascinate me,” Von Mertens said.
Von Mertens learned that Leavitt and the other “Harvard Computers” were able to make leaps forward in cosmological and astronomical research thanks to their access to the glass plates. The plates, which depict the night sky in both the northern and southern hemispheres, are the first full images of the visible universe and the most extensive collection of astronomical glass plates in the world.
“The director of the Harvard astronomy lab at the time, Edward Pickering, thought women would be well-suited for this task. There was some math involved; women were being educated more at this time, but they were not being employed. These were all white, middle-class women, and none of them married, and none of them had children, which was very rare for their social status at the time,” Von Mertens said. “The expectation was that if you married, you stopped working, and none of these women wanted to do that. Some of them stayed at the lab their whole lives.”
At that time, around 1900, women were not permitted to operate telescopes.
“With the glass plates, the women could study the stars by daylight, and there was just a huge amount of data available for them to study. They were originally hired to just process the data, and the men had not caught up to the fact that the plates were where the real science was happening,” Von Mertens said. “The women had this set of data, which enabled them to make their own discoveries and do their own research. The men were still using the telescopes, which actually limited their ability to research the stars, because the viewing was limited by time and conditions.”
“The Brightness of Stars” exhibit features a hand-stitched, quilted diptych depicting the stars at the time of Leavitt’s birth and at the time and date of her death, framing the span of her life.
“The quilted diptych really anchors the show; it is a monument and a memorial to Leavitt’s life,” Von Mertens said. “The basic truth of her discovery launched the modern study of the universe.”
Von Mertens draws parallels between Leavitt’s work, which required painstaking attention to detail, and her own work, particularly quilting.
“I come from a quilt-making background, and quilts are a very effective medium for storytelling,” Von Mertens said. “They are a beautiful vehicle for commemorating historical events.”
The exhibit also includes the “Polaris Portraits,” sketches Von Mertens based on Leavitt’s notated glass plate slides of Polaris, the North Star. The plates, created in 1910, were part of Leavitt’s process of using multiple-exposure glass plate photographs to compare the magnitude of stars.
“I sketched the glass plates to really be in Leavitt’s world; to inhabit her world, and to visually navigate the data. How did Leavitt do what she did when she had so little information?” Von Mertens said. “That’s what prompted me to make the drawings. It required me to hold my attention the same way Leavitt wielded hers; the drawings drop people into her world and her process. The tiny details of Leavitt’s work, the tiny details of astronomy photos, really bring her world forward.”
Von Mertens’ brother, artist and furniture maker Tod Von Mertens, built a replica of the mirrored frame viewer Leavitt used to study the glass plates. The frame is displayed at the exhibit.
Leavitt is best known for discovering, in 1912, what came to be called Leavitt’s Law, or the period-luminosity relationship, which allowed astronomers to measure the distance to faraway stars for the first time.
“Leavitt’s Law really launched modern cosmology, which is the study of the universe as a whole. Before that, astronomers had no way of measuring how far stars are from Earth,” Von Mertens said.
Von Mertens, who works out of her studio in the Harrisville mill, says having “The Brightness of Stars” come to New Hampshire is particularly meaningful.
“Everyone has been so supportive of my work, and I have felt so supported by the community, so it is really nice to have these works on display right here in New Hampshire so people can go see them, and kind of reignite interest in the project,” Von Mertens said. “These objects have really been great ambassadors as a way to tell Leavitt’s story.”
Dublin resident Kimberly Kersey Asbury, associate professor of art and design at Saint Anselm College, is curator of the exhibit. Asbury, who invited Von Mertens to serve as guest artist for the school’s Fine Arts Series Lecture and exhibit her work in the Dana Center Alcove Galleries, also helped design and oversee the construction of the galleries at St. Anselm.
“It’s been exciting to be able to bring incredible artists such as Anna Von Mertens to the galleries. I had been hoping to exhibit Anna’s work for years, and now, with this new body of work, the creative research she did at Harvard, combined with the publication of her book with MIT Press, it was the perfect time to bring her to Saint Anselm,” Kersey Asbury said.
“The Brightness of Stars ” traveled to the University Galleries of Illinois State University and Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College in 2023. Von Mertens received a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., where she studied dark matter as a structuring force in our universe, and a United States Artists Fellowship in Visual Arts.
Von Mertens, who grew up in Peterborough and graduated from ConVal, went on to write “Attention is Discovery: The Life and Legacy of Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt,” published by MIT Press in 2024.
“I feel so lucky to be able to tell this story. It never ceases to fascinate me — it’s women’s history, it’s art, it’s photography — there are so many access points,” she said
The book was named as a finalist for the Association of American Publishers Prose Award in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology category.
Von Mertens work, which “use material intelligence as a lens to see science and history,” have been widely exhibited at institutions including the Aspen Art Museum; Berkeley Art Museum; deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design in Oslo, Norway; RISD Museum; Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery; and Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College. The artist is represented by Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, Oregon.
For more information about the exhibit, visit anselm.edu/about/arts-saint-anselm-college/visual-arts. For information about Anna Von Mertens, visit annavonmertens.com/portfolio/polaris-portraits/.