Ledger and Murray Galleries
Life as Art is an exhibition of artworks from the Museum’s permanent collection that are composed of wood or fiber materials. Included among the objects in this exhibition are contemporary works by Holly Hambrick, Margaret Steward, and Charles Parkhill, a set of Chinese nesting tables, Pre-Columbian textiles, and works from southern Africa.
Perkins Gallery
Between 2002 and 2004, Robert and Patricia Maxim donated to our collection three dozen original drawings by California artist David Maxim. Some were studies for larger paintings, and some were exercises in visualization, but all of them are wonderful pieces of art.
Maxim is a San Francisco based artist whose work deals with mythical characters and forces. The Polk Museum of Art has an extraordinary collection of his dynamic works on paper in addition to two major sculptural paintings. Maxim will talk about his work at a pre-reception lecture in the Museum’s auditorium on Friday, December 9 at 6:00pm.
Dorothy Jenkins and Emily S. Macey Galleries
Internationally renowned artist Carrie Mae Weems is one of the most important artists working today. Her work in photography, video and installation examines the history of culture, gender, and race within American society. The Louisiana Project was commissioned in 2003 to commemorate the bicentennial of the The Louisiana Purchase. However, the impact of this exhibition extends more widely than the particular culture of New Orleans.
Carrie Mae Weems has been exhibiting internationally for over 20 years. Her work has been collected by virtually every major American art museum including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Getty Center. She has been awarded numerous honors and has served as artist-in-residence at the National Endowment for the Arts, Bunting Institute at Harvard University, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Recently, she was awarded the Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize Fellowship by the Trustees of the American Academy in Rome. This exhibition has been organized by the Newcomb Art Gallery, Tulane University, New Orleans and toured under the auspices of Pamela Auchincloss/Arts Management, New York.
Ledger and Murray Galleries
The Polk Museum of Art has exhibited paintings as wide as 30 feet and sculptures that weigh over 3,000 pounds. But bigger doesn’t always mean better. This exhibition from of works from the Museum’s permanent collection contains over two dozen paintings, prints, drawings, and sculptures from artists including Gerardo Cantú, Marc Chagall, Evelyn Ellwood, Mark Tobey, and Sandy Winters.
Dorothy Jenkins Gallery
The Pattern and Decoration Movement emerged in the 1970s. It was the outgrowth of several different trends in the art world at the time: a reaction against the pervasiveness of Minimalism, a growing interest in the history and products of women, and an increased admiration of the decorative arts—ranging from old American quilts to the stylized arabesque forms in early Islamic art. Artists including Miriam Schapiro, Robert Rahway Zakanitch, Cynthia Carlson, Tony Robbin, and many others created colorful and complex paintings, prints, and collages that reflect sources as diverse as early 20th century Russian art, old wallpaper designs, and computer recreations of the fourth dimension.
The Polk Museum of Art has a major collection of works from the Pattern and Decoration Movement, including seven works by Schapiro plus an additional suite of 6 prints. This exhibition will also mark the first opportunity for the public to view major works by Tony Robbin and Cynthia Carlson, which were recently acquired by the Museum.
Perkins Gallery
Maria Brito is a Cuban-American artist who lives in Miami and creates vivid, realist paintings on shaped pieces of wood. Her work recalls her childhood in Cuba yet is full of warmth and hope. She says of her work, “My work deals with essential and universal existence as defined by emotions, sensations, knowledge, and perception. The imagery that I use is symbolic of a process of self-discovery, and it is a personal iconographic system developed from my identity as a woman, a mother, an exiled Cuban, a naturalized American, and a Catholic.”
Among her many accomplishments, Ms. Brito has received three Individual Artist Fellowship Awards from the State of Florida, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant.
Perkins Gallery
Rebecca Sexton Larson has established herself as one of the most creative artists in Florida. Although she is often classified as a photographer, and has recently been awarded the distinction of Photographer Laureate of Tampa, Larson paints over her photographs and incorporates fabric and stitched text into them. As she creates layers of images, paint and text, she investigates the impact of distance and context in understanding personal and general history. The stitched text is more than caption; the paint is more than decoration. Each material brings a different perspective on the subject; Larson brings their varying points of view into a poignant consensus.
Larson has been awarded two Florida Individual Artist’s Fellowships and has had her work collected by museums including Gulf Coast Museum of Art, Polk Museum of Art and Tampa Museum of Art.
Dorothy Jenkins Gallery
Known for her use of political satire and humor to examine current American Indian issues, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith is one of the nation’s most accomplished contemporary artists. This exhibition of compelling works, ranging from paintings and drawings to prints and installations, explores the artist’s preoccupation with the paradox of American Indian existence in the reality of the U.S. consumer culture. Quick-to-See Smith examines myths, stereotypes and flaws of contemporary society through loaded subject matter such as cowboys and Indians, General Custer, fry bread, reservation life, war, and various American Indian archteypes. Her work has received significant critical acclaim through more than 75 solo exhibitions and has been collected by many important museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
This exhibition was organized by the University of Missouri-Kansas City Belger Arts Center for Creative Studies with guest curator Charles Muir Lovell, Director, Harwood Museum of Art, University of New Mexico, Taos. The exhibition tour was organized by TREX: the Traveling Exhibitions Program of the Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, with support from MetLife Foundation and McCune Charitable Foundation.
Perkins Gallery
Richard Florsheim (1916-1979) was both a great painter and printmaker. His nearly 4 decade career explored issues as varied as war and self-identity. But he became known especially for his landscapes—urban, industrial, and pastoral. This exhibition presents a large selection of his work, recently acquired by the Polk Museum of Art, from 1940 through the 1970s.
Dorothy Jenkins Gallery
Pre-Columbian figurines, 20th-century Japanese bowls and flower bottles, 7th-century Korean jars and warming stands, Zulu beer pots, French, German, Spanish, and Italian bowls and plates from the 16th-18th centuries, and contemporary American sculptures and vessels. It’s a long and diverse list of objects, united by one very important thing: clay. From the Good Earth: Ceramic Artworks from the Permanent Collection brings together dozens of objects from five continents and 2,000 years of human activity. The exhibition will present the similarities and differences in the construction and use of ceramic objects from these many cultures as we celebrate this rich area from our Permanent Collection holdings.
Emily S. Macey Gallery
Works in the Freundlich Collection include drawings by many of the most important artists of the early 20th century. Robert Henri, Raphael Soyer, Ben Shahn and George Bellows are just a few of the many artists whose work is included in this exhibition.
Murray and Ledger Galleries
The Polk Museum of Art has a collection of 45 prints and mixed media works by noted German artist Günter Wirth. This exhibition, Repositioning Reality, presents a selection of 20 of these works that demonstrate Wirth’s intriguing blending of the geometry of European Constructivism, the compositional strength of Japanese graphic work, and the viewpoint of a well-traveled and educated artist. His artworks have been exhibited throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States.
Perkins Gallery
The photographs of Frances Paley are traditional film derived imagery. However, she uses a computer to alter the color to enrich and deepen the emotional impact of the images. The subjects in these photographs are related in one way or another to the past, whether they represent funerary subjects or animals from an archaic Parisian taxidermy shop. For Paley, they symbolize an affirmation of life through the poignancy of memory and love, mirroring our humanity by allowing us to peek into our wistful desires to capture the ephemeral and transcend time.
Dorothy Jenkins and Emily S. Macey Galleries
The Archie Bray Foundation for Ceramic Artists in Helena, Montana was founded in 1951. This exhibition includes 85 pieces drawn form the Foundation’s large collection of work created by the over 300 artists who have resided there. The collection includes ceramics from past resident artists, as well as historical pieces and works from visiting artists, including pottery by world-renowned craftsmen Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada. The exhibition also includes the work of past directors of the Foundation including Rudy Autio, David Cornell, Ken Ferguson, Carol Roorbach, David Shaner, Kurt Weiser, and Peter Voulkos.
This exhibiton has been organized by the Holter Museum of Art, Helena, Montana. The tour was developed by Smith Kramer Fine Art Service, Kansas City, Missouri.
Ledger and Murray Galleries
The Museum’s growing photography collection includes great variety in artists, themes, and techniques. Artists represented in the exhibition include Jerry Uelsmann, Lee Friedlander, Richard Buswell, and Birney Imes.
Dorothy Jenkins Gallery
Doug Hall’s reputation was founded on his work in video, performance, and installation from the late ‘70s and ‘80s. Since the late 1980s, Hall has worked almost exclusively with large-format photography using images that pull from a range of themes and locations, including opera house interiors, highways, and leisurescapes, but are inherently connected by his examination of the urban landscape and its social, cultural, and historical implications in a world that is overwhelmed by globalization. The large photographs in this exhibition remind us of familiar places we have been, if not the actual places photographed. They urge the viewer to reconsider what constitutes familiarity by revealing either a deception or an irregularity.
This exhibition has been organized by the Newcomb Art Gallery, Tulane University, New Orleans. Traveled under the auspices of Pamela Auchincloss/Arts Management.
Perkins Gallery
ART (Art Resource Trust) is a newly formed group of Museum supporters whose mission is to support the purchase of artwork for the Museum’s permanent collection while learning more about collecting art. The group’s first purchase will be a major photograph purchased from this exhibition of available work.
Dorothy Jenkins & Emily S. Macey Galleries
PICASSO: 25 YEARS OF EDITION CERAMICS FROM THE EDWARD WESTON COLLECTION will be presented at the Polk Museum of Art from September 18 through November 28, 2004. The Museum will celebrate the opening of this exhibition with a preview reception on Friday, September 17; the reception is free for Museum members and $5 for guests. Mr. Edward Weston, renowned collector of Picasso ceramics will be in attendance.
The Picasso exhibition presents a selection of the ceramics created by Pablo Picasso in collaboration with George and Suzanne Ramie and the artisans at their Madoura pottery workshop in Vallauris, Southern France, between the years 1947 and 1971. The exhibition consists of 65 ceramic works, including plates, bowls, pitchers, vases and plaques, plus posters from previous Picasso ceramics exhibitions and photographs of Picasso at work at the Madoura workshop.
Internationally famed for his paintings, sculpture, and graphics, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was long intrigued by ceramics. After seeing the works of the Madoura potters at a crafts fair in 1946, he asked Georges and Suzanne Ramie, who operated the studio, to provide him with the opportunity to work with ceramics.
Perkins Gallery
In recent years, Gainesville artist Margaret Ross Tolbert has developed two distinctive bodies of work: the springs of North and Central Florida, and Turkish doors. The two subjects are united through Tolbert’s powerful use of color in her brilliant, large-scale oil paintings. This exhibition features 13 paintings ranging in scale from 60×48 inches to 90×396 inches. A catalogue created by the Polk Museum of Art will complement this exhibition.
For over 20 years, Ms. Tolbert has explored the depths of the springs in North and Central Florida. The colors and light are unique and remarkable. She works on site to capture these elements, before transferring them to her large canvases. She has also made numerous journeys to Turkey during the last two decades, making innumerable sketches of the people and places she has encountered. Most fascinating for her have been the doors leading into many of the most beautiful and exotic buildings in the world.
Though separated by thousands of miles, the springs of Florida and the doors of Turkey are united by many things. First is history. Though one is natural and the other man-made, both the springs and the doors have stories to tell. But they are also linked aesthetically. Turkey, as one of the most important trade destinations throughout much of the last two millennia, has achieved a combination of decorative roots unlike anywhere in the world. The same special circumstances have existed in Florida to allow for the formation of the springs. The cool blues and greens of the springs are no more lush than the golden hues of the doors.
Ms. Tolbert will give a special tour of her exhibition on Tuesday, October 19 beginning at 10:30am. This exhibition will be celebrated with a reception on September 18, 7:00-9:00pm.
Murray and Ledger Galleries
“It is at the edge of a petal that love waits,” wrote William Carlos Williams. Maybe not love in this case, but certainly a wide variety of lovely works of art from the Polk Museum of Art’s permanent collection. From specific flowers such as the sunflowers in the works of Faith Ringgold and Anna Tomczak to the more generally floral-inspired works of Louis Comfort Tiffany and Louisa Chase. Other works included in the exhibition are Japanese ceramics and textiles as well as works by Lowell Nesbitt, Miriam Schapiro, and Robert Rahway Zakanitch.
