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Works of the Week: January 17, 2012
  Image
credits (from
left): Joel Queen, Carolina Parakeets,
2011, ceramic with turquoise, 7.5 x 8 x 8 inches Gift of Susan Holden,
Collectors' Circle Member. Joel Queen, Untitled Pot, 2011, ceramic, 6.5 x 8 x 8
inches. Gift of Gail and Brian McCarthy, Collectors' Circle Members.
Joel Queen is a ninth-generation potter of the Eastern Band of
Cherokee Indians. Having earned a Master of Fine Arts from Western Carolina
University, Queen produces five styles of pottery including black pottery,
which is the most traditional. "As a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee
Indians, I feel I have a responsibility to keep Cherokee art alive," he says.
"I live to teach others about my art and the Cherokee culture." [1]
Queen's work preserves the traditions of Cherokee pottery, while
incorporating more contemporary designs. His black pottery is hand-polished and
hand-fired in an open pit [2].
As seen in Carolina Parakeets, 2011,
this form is often incised with both traditional and modern designs, and is
decorated with turquoise and coral using tools also carved by hand. This
exquisite work was recently gifted to the Museum's Permanent Collection by Collectors'
Circle member, Susan Holden. A second work of this style, Untitled pot, 2011, was gifted by Collectors' Circle members Gail
and Brian McCarthy.
In the spring of 2002, Queen was among a small group of Cherokee
potters instrumental in reviving the stamped pottery style. Stamped pottery is
hand-coiled, burnished and fired in an open pit, and is the oldest of the
Cherokee pottery traditions, dating back thousands of years.[3]
Queen's pottery will be featured in the upcoming exhibition Ancient
Forms, Modern Minds: Contemporary Cherokee Ceramics, on view at the
Museum from March 17 - August 12, 2012.
[1]
Quote accessed in December 2011 from Web site: http://www.blueridgeheritage.com/traditional-artist-directory/joel-queen
[2]
Information accessed in December 2011 from Web site: http://www.blueridgeheritage.com/traditional-artist-directory/joel-queen
[3]
Information accessed in December 2011 from Web site: http://www.blueridgeheritage.com/traditional-artist-directory/joel-queen
Work of the Week: January 10, 2012
Image credit: David Levinthal (1949- ), Untitled from the series
Barbie (#77), 1998, polaroid Polacolor ER Land Film, 20 x 24 inches. Edition
1/5. Collectors' Circle purchase, 2011.
Born in San
Francisco, CA in 1949, David Levinthal is a leading contemporary photographer
who has produced a diverse body of work, primarily utilizing large-format
Polaroid photography. Perhaps best known for his Barbie portraits, Levinthal
uses small toys and props with dramatic lighting to construct mini environments
of subject matter, often touching upon various aspects of American culture,
from racial and political references to American pop culture and beyond.
Levinthal
comments, "Ever since I began working with toys, I have been intrigued with the
idea that these seemingly benign objects could take on such incredible power
and personality simply by the way they were photographed. I began to realize
that by carefully selecting the depth of field and making it narrow, I could
create a sense of movement and reality that was in fact not there."
Levinthal
earned a BA in Studio Art from Stanford University (1970), an MFA in
Photography from Yale University (1973) and a Master of Science in Management
Science from the MIT Sloan School of Management (1981). He was the recipient of
a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 1995 and a National Endowment
for the Arts Fellowship in 1990/91.
Levinthal is included in many public collections, including
those of notable fine art institutions both domestically and abroad, such as
the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in
Washington, DC, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France, among others. His
work has been featured in recent solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles and
Portland, OR. In 2002, Levinthal was also featured in a solo exhibition at the
Asheville Art Museum titled David Levinthal: Disquieting Tales
from Toyland.
The
2011 Collectors' Circle members voted to acquire Untitled from the series Barbie (#77), 1998 for the Museum's
Permanent Collection. This work complements
and expands the Museum's growing collection of contemporary American
photography by noteworthy American artists including Lee Friedlander, John
Pfahl and William Wegman.
Work of the Week: January 6, 2012
 Sue
Fuller (1941 - 2006), Catch Me a Planet,
1952, 10 x 14 inches, intaglio print. Collectors' Circle Purchase, 2011.
Artist Sue Fuller was born in Pittsburgh, PA
in 1914. She attended the Carnegie Institute and Columbia University. In the
summer of 1934, she studied with Hans Hofmann, a German-born American artist
and pioneer of the Abstract Expressionist movement. During the early 1940s
Fuller worked with the printmaker Stanley William Hayter at his studio, Atelier
17, which was moved from Paris to New York City following the outbreak of World
War II. There, Fuller became a master printer and developed intaglio techniques
of her own.
Fuller was a prolific painter, printmaker,
sculptor and teacher. She was a member of the Society of American Etchers,
Society of American Graphic Artists and Artists Equity Association, and taught at
the University of Minnesota, the Stourbridge School of Arts and Crafts,
University of Georgia, Columbia University Teachers College, Pratt Institute
and the Museum of Modern Art.
Her work has been included in numerous solo
and group exhibitions and is represented in the collections of the New York
Public Library, Chicago Art Institute, Tate Gallery, Library of Congress, Fogg
Museum of Harvard University, Museum of Modern Art, Carnegie Institute, Whitney
Museum, Metropolitan Museum, National Academy of Design and other notable
institutions.
Thanks to the generosity of the Museum's
Collectors' Circle and other individuals, the Museum has amassed a solid
collection of mid-century works of American art. Acquired for the Museum by the
Circle in late 2011, Catch Me a Planet
is a rich and complex intaglio, and a significant contribution and compliment
to the Museum's collection of fine art prints and growing holdings of mid-century
art.
Work of the Week: December 15, 2011
Pierre Daura
(1896-1976), Funeral, ca. 1941-45,
oil painting, 32 x 25.25 inches. Gift of Martha R. Daura. Asheville Art Museum
Collection. 1998.17.35.21
Spanish-born artist Pierre Daura (1896-1976) was raised
in Barcelona where he studied at the School of Fine Arts, known as "La Llotja",
under José
Ruiz Blasco, the father of renowned artist Pablo Picasso. Daura sold his first
painting at the age of fourteen. In 1914, at the age of eighteen, he traveled
to Paris where he began to seriously pursue a career in art and exhibited his
work in numerous galleries and exhibitions, including the Salon D'Automne in
1922.
While painting a mural in Normandy in 1923, Daura
sustained an injury to his left hand, which was rendered permanently useless
due to nerve damage caused by a scaffolding accident. In 1927, Daura met an
American art student, Louise Heron Blair of Richmond, Virginia. The couple
married in 1928 and moved to the small, art-centric town of Saint-Cirq Lapopie in
Southwestern France.
In the wake of WWII, Daura and his wife decided to
establish permanent residency in Virginia while visiting Louise's family in
1939. Daura was officially granted U.S. citizenship in 1943. During his time in
Virginia, the artist was named the Art Department Chair of Lynchburg College in
1945. He also taught art at Randolph-Macon Women's College from 1946-53, after
which he returned to painting and sculpting fulltime.
Daura worked in several media including oils, watercolor,
engraving, drawing and sculpture, often manipulating the techniques to examine
himself and the world around him. Daura's
reflective character is evident in his anaylitic self portraits and his
exuberant landscapes. His study of other
artists and experimentation with the influences he encountered throughout his
career are evident in his prolific body of work, which includes a diverse range
of media and subject matter. Daura skillfully developed his own unique style,
assimilating early influences of Medieval and Renaissance art, the art of El Greco
and Cezanne, and the art of the avant-garde, which he had encountered in Paris.
Daura's Funeral,
completed soon after the artist settled in Virginia, combines both landscape
and portraiture in its depiction of mourners gathered around a gravesite as a
casket is covered and enters its final resting place. On view in The Elemental Arts: Air | Earth | Fire | Water, Daura's oil
painting exemplifies man's final view of the earth. Funeral was given to the Museum in 1999 by the artist's daughter,
Martha R. Daura.
Work of the Week: November 21, 2011
 Jack Tworkov (1900- 1982), KTL #1, 1982, lithograph, 24 x 24 inches. Gift of Brian E. Butler. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2005.11.10.61
Polish-born artist Jack Tworkov made his mark as a leading
Abstract Expressionist painter in the first half of the 20th century,
though he later explored other styles. Born in 1900, Tworkov studied English at
Columbia University and briefly contemplated
becoming a poet before turning his attention to art. He studied at the National
Academy of Design from 1923 to 1925 and later, at the Art Students League from
1925 to 1926.
Tworkov was employed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA)
between 1935 and 1941 as one of many artists commissioned under the Federal Art
Project. During this time, he made connections with many artists who later
pioneered the Abstract Expressionist movement. Tworkov was a founding member of
a group called ‘The Club', which from 1949 until the late 1950s was the primary
avant-garde forum for art in New York City. Notable members included artists
Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and Philip Guston, among others.
Tworkov's earlier work is marked by a sensual and lyrical
sense of line and abstract figuration. He later began using a grid to create
more structured compositions. He used layers of gouache, a water-based paint, both
as an additive and subtractive element, often scraping and erasing to create
textured drawings and paintings. In the mid-1960s, Tworkov turned to a
geometric style aligned more closely with minimalism. KTL #1 reflects this shift to a more rigid, geometric framework
with color overlay.
Throughout his career, Tworkov taught at a number of
prestigious schools such as Black Mountain College (1952), the Pratt Institute,
and Yale University, where he was Chairman of the Art Department from 1963 to
1969. He was awarded the Corcoran Gold Medal at the 28th Biennial
Exhibit of American Painting in 1963. The next year his work was presented in
solo exhibitions at both the Whitney Museum of American Art and the San
Francisco Museum of Art. In 1982, just prior to the artist's death, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum organized a major retrospective exhibition of his work entitled Jack Tworkov: Fifteen Years of Painting.
Tworkov's KTL #1 was
given to the Museum by Brian E. Butler in 2005. The painting is currently on
view in the exhibition Homage2, which pays
tribute to artist Josef Albers's mid-century series Homage to the Square, and incorporates works by artists who have
used color and geometric space to explore the limitations and possibilities of
the square format.
October 20, 2011
Maud
Gatewood (1934-2004), Lake Road, 1959,
oil on canvas, 40.13 x 39.13 inches. Bequest of the Artist. Asheville Art
Museum Collection. 2007.02.01.21.
Born in Yanceyville, NC in 1934, Maud Gatewood
received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1954 from the Women's College of
North Carolina, now the University of North Carolina Greensboro. She later
earned her Master of Fine Arts degree from Ohio State University and was
awarded a Fulbright grant for graduate study in Vienna, Austria from1962 - 1963
under renowned painter Oskar Kokoschka[1].
Gatewood taught at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, AL, Texas Christian
University in Fort Worth, TX, and was a member of the Art Department faculty at
the University of North Carolina at Charlotte during the program's infancy in
the early 1970s[2].
Much of Gatewood's work walks a thin line between
abstraction and representation, and ranges from figurative work to landscapes.
Early works by the artist, such as Lake
Road, demonstrate the artist's keen understanding of Abstract Expressionism
and her thorough grounding in an art form that invites self-expression through
spontaneity, loose brushwork and composition. This work was given to the Museum
as a bequest of the artist.
Lake
Road
can be seen in the current exhibition Color
Study, on view in the Appleby Foundation Gallery through Sunday, November
6, 2011.
[1]
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ncccha/biographies/maudegatewood.html
[2]
http://libapps.uncc.edu/manuscripts/ms_display.php?ms=393.php
October 14, 2011
Ewart M. Ball, Sr.
(1894-1937), Leveling of Cox Street for
New Battery Park Hotel, negative 1921, positive 2000. Black and white
silver gelatin print, 10.25 x 12.86 inches. Museum Purchase with funds provided
by the Asheville Citizen-Times. Asheville Art Museum Collection. SC2000.01.101.91
Ewart M. Ball, Sr. was born in Madison County, NC in 1894 where
he spent his early life growing up on a farm.
In 1911 he joined the U.S. Army, for which he served along the Mexican
border until about 1919, at which point he began practicing photography, moving
in rapid succession from the cities of Charleston, Florence and Georgetown, SC[i]. It was during this period that Ball began
producing postcard portraits. The
opportunity to purchase the Plateau Studio, then located at Pack Square,
brought him back to Western North Carolina and the city of Asheville[ii]. Though his studio was operated as a full-time
commercial and portrait business, Ball also became a photographer for the
Asheville Citizen-Times for which he captured images of daily life and major
events in the region.
In 1921, Ball sat upon a hillside overlooking the city of
Asheville where Battery Park Hotel once stood. Built in 1886, the grand hotel was
one of Asheville's most renowned venues during the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. Shortly after opening the
Grove Park Inn in 1913, Edwin Grove purchased the Battery Park Hotel and then
tore it down, excavating and leveling the massive hill on which it stood before
erecting a second Battery Park Hotel in 1924.
Ball's documentary photograph captured the enormous feat of leveling 25
acres of hillside with only mule and muscle.
Ewart Ball Sr.'s photograph reflects on man's ability to
physically alter the earth and can be seen in the current exhibition The
Elemental Arts: Air | Earth |
Fire | Water .
The Museum's Photography Collection,
which contains both documentary and art photography, is a significant resource
for the Museum and is utilized in many exhibitions.
[i]
http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/photo/ball/ball.htm
[ii]
http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/photo/ball/ball.htm
October 7, 2011
 Paula Stark (1956- ), Red Earth, 1996, oil painting, 14 x 30 inches. Gift of the Artist. Asheville Art Museum
Collection. 1997.11.01.21
In Red Earth, artist Paula Stark at once suggests a sense of timelessness and serenity, while capturing an impression of moodiness that distances the viewer from the scene. Known for her landscape paintings, at first glance many of Stark’s works appear purely representational. Upon further examination, one notices the perfect balance of the piece and the absence of people in the scene. Rather than depicting an event or action within the scene, Stark uses her landscapes to evoke emotion and to establish atmosphere. Stark has said of her work, “Landscape painting to me, is a conversation with nature…I approach each landscape with specific ideas both conscious and unconscious.”
Paula Stark was born in Worcester, MA. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of New Hampshire in 1983 and her Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from Parsons School of Design in New York City in 1988. Her art has been featured in solo exhibitions in New York City, NY, Williamsburg, VA, Greenwich, CT, Asheville, NC, and Montclair, NJ, to name a few, and many of her works are currently held in both private and public collections nationwide.
The Asheville Art Museum seeks to engage and inspire individuals and enrich community through dynamic experiences in American Art of the 20th and 21st centuries. Paintings, whether representational or abstract, are primary to the Museum’s collecting goals. Therefore, works such as Red Earth strengthen the Museum’s contemporary holdings. Red Earth is currently on view in The Elemental Arts: Air | Earth | Fire | Water, which uses both two- and three-dimensional works from the Museum’s Permanent Collection to examine the ways in which artists have treated or incorporated the four elements into their creations.
September 23, 2011
 Randy Shull (1962- ),
Threshold/Arbor, 1996, painted wood sculpture,
95 x 90 x 6 inches. Gift of Hedy Fischer. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 1999.26.38
By definition [1],
a threshold signifies the place or
point of entering or beginning; an arbor
is typically thought of as a shelter of vines, of branches or
of latticework covered with climbing shrubs. Randy Shull's Threshold/Arbor contemplates
what lies above the surface of the earth in the current exhibition, The
Elemental Arts: Air | Earth | Fire | Water . The sculpture at once reflects the things that
organically flow from the earth and, conversely, to things made by man or
imposed upon the earth. Threshold/Arbor
invites viewers to seemingly step into the work itself and is an
effective and compelling example of the artist's creativity.
Within the
Permanent Collection of more than 3,000 works of 20th and 21st century American
art, the Museum places particular emphasis on fine handmade objects representing
the rich cultural heritage of Western North Carolina and the American
Southeast. As such, Shull's Threshold/Arbor,
which was donated to the Museum by Hedy Fischer in 1999, is an important
contribution to the Museum's current holdings of craft and sculpture by regional
artists.
Known for his rich use of color and space [2], Shull's sculptural works of art often celebrate and blur
the boundaries between art, craft, architecture and design. As one critic
described [3],
"[His] art exists in a variety of art worlds: contemporary abstract painting,
assemblage sculptures and the revival of handmade furniture."
Shull is an award-winning North Carolina artist who, over
the course of his career, has worked in a number of mediums including
architecture, furniture design, landscape design and painting. He currently divides
his time living and working in both Asheville, NC and Merida, Mexico. A native
of Illinois, Shull received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1986 from the
Rochester Institute of Technology. From 1987 to 1991 he completed an artist
residency at Penland School of Craft in Penland, NC, where he also worked as an
instructor.
Among his many accolades, Shull was awarded a North Carolina
Arts Council Fellowship in 1994 and a National Endowment for the Arts Southern
Arts Federation grant in 1993. The artist has shown his work in numerous solo
exhibitions across the country, most recently in the Ogden Museum of Southern
Art, the Bellevue Art Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design.
His work is held in collections both nationally and abroad, including those of the
Asheville Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the High Museum, the Mint Museum of
Craft and Design, and the Museum of Art and Design in New York, as well as
private collections in Australia, Columbia, Japan,
Germany, the U.S. and Venezuela.
[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/
[2] http://www.randyshull.com/bio.html
[3] http://www.hodgestaylor.com/gallery/index.php/artists/cv/cv-randy-shull
September 14, 2011
Beth Van Hoesen (1926- 2010), Pat, nd, color intaglio print, 11.75 x
9.25 inches. Gift of R.K. Benites. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2009.01.05.60
Beth
Van Hoesen was born in 1926 in Boise, Idaho and spent her childhood in
California. In 1944, Van Hoesen enrolled at Stanford University, where she
studied under prominent artist and muralist Victor Arnautoff. She also studied
painting both at the Escuela de Pintura y Escultura de la Escuela Esmeralda in
Mexico City from 1945 - 46, and at the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA) in
San Francisco from 1946 - 47. After earning her Bachelor of Arts degree from
Stanford University in 1948, Van Hoesen returned to the CSFA in 1951 where she
studied with Clyfford Still, an American artist and painter regarded as one of
the pioneers of Abstract Expressionism.
In
1953, Van Hoesen married fello
w artist Mark Adams. The couple settled in San
Francisco, where they renovated a 1910 firehouse and established their
respective studios. By the late 1950s, Van Hoesen began to receive praise for
her drawings and intaglio prints, including a solo exhibition at Stanford Art
Gallery in 1957. Though she was a gifted
draftswoman, Van Hoesen was particularly interested in intaglio printmaking. Intaglio is an Italian word which means to cut below the surface, which is
precisely what the artist must do when creating intaglio prints. Van Hoesen
transferred line drawings to a copper plate covered with an acid resistant
black wax. The copper plate was then dipped into an acid bath, exposing the
copper to chemicals. Once removed, the plate was cleaned and then covered with
ink and sent through the press.
Van
Hoesen is most often recognized for her portraits as well as her images of
animals. In the preface to a 2009 exhibition of Van Hoesen's prints, Joseph
Goldyne, a prominent artist, writer and collector, wrote "For her, the appeal
of a subject owed largely to its adaptability to intaglio-how it would comport
with her love of capturing the essence of form in line and tone". Van Hoesen's
portrait, Pat, reflects this
straightforward approach and is elegant in its simplicity.
Throughout
her career, Beth Van Hoesen distinguished herself as a major figure in 20th
century printmaking. Her work has been exhibited in noteworthy museums across
the country, such as the Chicago Art Institute in Chicago, IL, the Museum of
Modern Art in NYC, and the Smithsonian Institution in D.C., along with many
others. She was widely honored for her artistic achievements, including a 1981
Award of Honor in Graphics from the San Francisco Arts Commission and a 1993
Distinguished Artist Award from the California Society of Printmakers.
Beth Van
Hoesen's color intaglio print, Pat, positioned
next to Robert Cottingham's Hot in the
current exhibition The Elemental Arts: Air | Earth | Fire |
Water, calls attention to the subject's fiery
hair. This work was donated to the Museum by R.K. Benites in 2009.
September 9, 2011
 Oscar Louis Bachelder
(1852-1935)
Pitcher, ca. 1920
Stoneware, 7.5 x 6 x 5.75 inches
2007 Art Nouveaux Purchase
Asheville Art Museum Collection
2007.18.01.83
In 1852, Oscar Louis Bachelder was born in Wisconsin to a
family of potters. Bachelder and his family moved several times throughout his
childhood. At each site, he received training in his father's workshops in
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois and ultimately, Nebraska. As a young man,
Bachelder began what turned into a 40-year career as an itinerant, utilitarian
potter, working in both the United States and Canada.
Attracted by the local clay and the beauty of Western North
Carolina, Bachelder settled nearby Asheville in the year 1911. At first he
found work in a local pottery studio. Four years later, at the age of 63, he
realized his life-long dream; with the help of a friend, Bachelder purchased
four acres of land just southwest of Asheville and opened a pottery shop,
eventually naming it Omar Khayyam Pottery.
Following the utilitarian pottery style that was so familiar to him, Bachelder focused
on producing functional wares for the first few years that his shop was open.
In the 1920s, Bachelder became one of only two potters in
Western North Carolina to intentionally produce "art" pottery. His resulting
work inspired a number of highly-regarded, American potters including Walter B.
Stephen of Pisgah Forest Pottery and
Paul Saint-Gaudens, the son of celebrated American sculptor Augustus
Saint-Gaudens. Bachelder was both a member of the Boston Society of Arts and
Crafts and the Philadelphia Arts and Crafts Guild. Groups such as these sprang
up in many cities across the United States in the 19th century to promote and
support the principles of traditional craftsmanship and handmade decorative
arts.
The pitcher, shown above, dates from about 1920. Bachelder
was noted for his mastery of form and his use of strong, deep glazes. This
pitcher links his utilitarian training with the advent of his interest in art
pottery. It is glazed with an Albany slip used by many utilitarian potters.
While the form is functional, the rounded curves and undulating lip reflect his
interest in more artful styles.
Bachelder's pottery,
often marked with an OLB cipher, is currently
held in collections across the country, such as the Asheville Art Museum, the
Newark Museum, the North Carolina Museum of Art and the Mint Museum. Bachelder's pitcher was purchased by the Asheville
Art Museum's Art Nouveaux Members in
2007, a group formed to support the development and stewardship of the Museum's
Permanent Collection through annual purchases of works of art.
The Asheville Art Museum's fundamental
collection focus is American art of the 20th and 21st centuries, with
particular emphasis on works significant to the Southeast, including fine,
handmade objects created in Western North Carolina. Pieces such as Oscar Bachelder's pitcher form
a strong basis for the Museum's Craft Collection. This work is currently on view in The
Elemental Arts: Air | Earth | Fire | Water, a choice ware representing the earth's bounty.
August 29, 2011
 Therman Statom (1953- )
Cabalo Valador Series
#28, 2010
Screen printed and assembled glass.
14.38 x 16.38 x 4.63 inches.
Gift of Delphia Allen Lamberson and
Hoke Smith Holt, 2010.23.04.50f.
Therman Statom
was born in Winter Haven, FL in 1953 and was raised in Washington, DC. As a
young man Statom developed a friendship with Cady Noland, son of the
Asheville-born abstract painter, Kenneth Noland. Statom's decision to become an
artist was reportedly attributed to his acquaintance with the Noland family.
Following
his early studies in glass art at the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, WA in
the early 1970s, the budding artist earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture
from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1974, and a Master of Fine
Arts in Sculpture from Pratt Institute's School of Art and Design in 1978.
While
studying at the Pratt Institute, Statom made his first works using sheet glass
because the school was not equipped for hot glass working. Statom later directed
a short-lived glass program at the University of California, Los Angeles from
1983 until the program came to a close in 1985.
Perhaps
because of this early exposure to the medium, Statom continues to primarily
create works using sheet glass. The artist uses various techniques to create
his work, usually cutting, painting, and assembling the glass, and
incorporating found-glass objects to create three-dimensional sculptures. Many
of these works are quite large in scale. Statom is known for his site-specific
installations in which glass structures dwarf the viewer.
Statom's
art can be found in art institutions around the world, including the California
African-American Museum in Los Angeles, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Detroit
Institute of Arts, the High Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of
Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American
Art Museum and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, among other notable
venues. Cabalo Valador Series #28 was
given to the Museum as a gift from Delphia Allen Lamberson and Hoke Smith Holt
in 2010.
Therman
Statom's works of glass art represent an important addition the Museum's
Permanent Collection for several reasons. Statom's experience both as a Studio Glass
artist and as a former instructor at the Penland School of Crafts make his work
an important contribution to the Museum's continued collecting focus on art of
significance to the cultural heritage of Western North Carolina.
Finally, Cabalo Valador Series #28 is one work in
a series created by the artist in conjunction with Flying Horse Editions, the
University of Central Florida's fine art research facility and the non-profit
publisher of many limited-edition prints, artist books and art objects by internationally
renowned artists. The Museum currently houses some two dozen prints that were created
at the Florida-based publisher. Prints and art objects such as these allow the
Museum to explore in greater depth the ways in which fine print studios work
with artists in a collaborative process.
Cabalo Valador Series #28 can be seen
in The
Elemental Arts: Air | Earth | Fire | Water, on view in the second floor galleries of the Asheville
Art Museum in September 2011 (ongoing).
August 17, 2011
 David Appleman (1943 - )
Summer
Sunrise, circa
1973.
Acrylic
painting on canvas,
38
x 47 inches.
Gift
of Jerald L. Melberg.
Asheville
Art Museum Collection.
1983.12.24.
Born in Mansfield, Ohio in 1943, David Appleman is an
accomplished sculptor, painter and printmaker. Appleman's Summer Sunrise (ca. 1973) is featured in the current exhibition Color
Study, on view in the Appleby Foundation Gallery through Sunday,
November 6, 2011.
Much of Appleman's work, including Summer Sunrise, falls into the tradition
of Abstraction. In Summer Sunrise Appleman
uses form, color and line to clearly reference blossoming flowers in the
morning sun. In contrast, Ellsworth Kelly's non-objective Orange with Green (1964 - 1965), also on view in Color
Study, offers no discernable content or imagery.
As a Southern artist, Appleman's pursuit of
abstraction during the latter part of the 20th century made him rare amongst abstract
artists of the time who mostly came from regions outside of the South. Thus,
his art is an important addition to the Museum's growing Permanent Collection
of 20th and 21st century American art of regional significance. Summer Sunrise was given to the Asheville
Art Museum by Jerald L. Melberg in 1983.
Appleman has received regional and national acclaim
for his art, including awards from Pembrooke College in North Carolina and the
Massilon Museum Purchase Award, among many other honors.
July 20, 2011
 Yvonne
Pene du Bois (1913 – 1997)
New Orleans Street,
circa 1946.
Oil Painting, 14.63 x 23 inches.
Gift of Elizabeth Roebling.
Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2003.22.03.21.
Born
in New York in 1913 to a family of artists, including acclaimed American
painter Guy Pene du Bois, Yvonne Pene du Bois was destined to become a great
artist. In 1924, du Bois and her family
moved to Garne par Dampierre, France where she attended the Lycee de Jeune
Filles in Versailles from 1924 to 1928. Following
her time in France, du Bois moved back to New York and attended the Art Students
League in the 1930s.
Best known for her cityscapes and portraits, du Bois
exhibited her work in respected galleries across the country, including the Art
Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy of the
Fine Arts and the National Academy of Design in New York. Presently the
artist’s oil painting, New Orleans Street,
can be seen on view in the Museum’s exhibition of works from the Permanent
Collection titled Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art
Museum.
New
Orleans Street is included in “Alone/Together”, one of
four themes depicted in the exhibition that were each curated by a different
member of the Museum’s curatorial staff. In “Alone/Together”, curated by Lynne
Poirier-Wilson, New Orleans Street is
displayed alongside a group of works eliciting viewers’ interpretations of what
constitutes the terms alone, solitary, lonely, together, close or social.
According to the curator,
“The empty and isolated
cityscape of New Orleans Street by
Yvonne Pene du Bois involves only the viewer and leaves the impression of
aloneness.”
Throughout her career, Du
Bois most often worked with oil paints on canvas. The technique of oil painting became a
preferred medium by many artists beginning in the seventeenth century. Oil
paints are made from natural or synthetic materials that have been mixed with
or ground into various vegetable oils, and may be layered onto the surface of a
canvas using a technique called impasto.
New
Orleans Street can
be seen in the Museum’s current exhibition Looking
Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum. This
exhibition will remain on view in the Museum’s Second Floor Galleries through
August 2011. New Orleans Street was a gift to the Asheville Art Museum from
Elizabeth Roebling and is part of the Museum’s Permanent Collection.
July 14, 2011
Aaron Yakim (1949 - )
White Oak Coal Basket, circa 1999
White oak splits with
no dye,
9 x 18.5 x 15.5
Donated by Billie
Ruth Sudduth.
Asheville Art Museum
Collection.
2006.07.02.85.
Appalachian basket maker Aaron Yakim was born in 1949 in Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Today, Yakim works as an artist both independently
and collaboratively with fellow basket maker Cynthia Taylor. Yakim and Taylor craft
their baskets by hand-splitting white oak trees using
hand tools. Their devotion to this
recognizable form of craft carries on an important tradition of basket making
among artists of the central and southern Appalachian mountain region.
Most Appalachian
baskets are classified by their construction. In the Southern Appalachians,
basket makers have traditionally crafted three types of baskets—rib baskets,
rod baskets and split baskets. Today,
both rib and split baskets are among the most commonly produced forms in the
region. Aaron Yakim’s White Oak
Coal Basket is an excellent example of a split basket. In split baskets, the splits are made from thin
flat segments, woven through a framework of thick, round or rectangular ribs.
This type of construction creates a very durable basket. Reflecting
on his feelings towards the artistry of basket making, Yakim states,
“Tree,
knife, and time . . . the basic simplicity of materials and process appeals to
my sense of efficiency. Add the deep roots of tradition, and I have a complete
food.”
Over the span of his career as an artist and basket maker, Yakim’s work
has received many accolades and has been featured in exhibitions across the
U.S. and region.
Both Aaron Yakim and Cynthia Taylor were recognized as Master
Traditional Artists at the 1996 National Folk Festival in Dayton, Ohio. Both artists are also members of the Southern
Highland Craft Guild, originally known as the Southern Mountain Handicraft
Guild. The Southern Highland Craft Guild was founded in 1930 to promote high standards in crafts and to market the
works of its members. Today, the Guild
has over 700 members, including Aaron Yakim and other contemporary Appalachian
basket makers featured in the Museum’s upcoming exhibition, A Tisket A Tasket: Appalachian, Cherokee
and Low Country Baskets.
Aaron Yakim’s White Oak Cole Basket is featured in
the exhibition, A Tisket A Tasket:
Appalachian, Cherokee and Low County Baskets, on view in the Museum’s
Holden Community Gallery from Friday, July 15 through Sunday, January 8, 2012. Yakim’s White
Oak Cole Basket was a gift to the Museum from Billie Ruth Sudduth. This
work is part of the Asheville Art Museum’s Permanent Collection.
July 7, 2011
Tom Dimond (1944 - )
Shamus Tabriz, circa 1975.
Acrylic painting on canvas, 49 x 49
inches.
Museum Purchase with funds provided
by the N.E.A.
Asheville Art Museum Collection.
1976.14.24.
Born in 1944 in Massachusetts, artist Tom Dimond developed an interest in
painting early in life. According to the artist, at the young age of eight he
was first intrigued by a puzzle included in the comics section of a local
newspaper that involved reproducing a series of short lines to create a
recognizable image in the form of a grid. This early inspiration is evident in
Dimond's geometric art. Other influences include Tibetan tantric paintings,
Bostonian architecture and signage, and the sacred geometry, surface and colors
of the 15th century Florentine painter, Paolo Uccello. These
early influences can be seen in Shamus Tabriz (ca. 1975) on view in Color
Study, opening Saturday, July 9 in the Museum's Appleby Foundation Gallery.
After graduating from Massachusetts
College of Art in the early 1960s, Dimond continued his studies at the
University of Tennessee at Knoxville where he earned his MFA in painting in
1969. Following graduate school, the artist worked as the art director for an
American humor magazine, National Lampoon from 1969 to 1970. Dimond also
served as the director of the Rudolph Lee Gallery at Clemson University from
1973 to 1988. Dimond's career in the arts has also included teaching positions
in various schools across the Southeast, including Winthrop College in Rock
Hill, South Carolina (1968 - 1969), Greenville County School District in
Greenville, South Carolina (1971 - 1973) and Clemson University in Clemson,
South Carolina from 1973 to present.
Dimond's work has been recognized in
two juried exhibitions in South Carolina and has been included in several solo
and group shows along the east coast. Dimond continues to exhibit his paintings
in galleries and juried shows across the South.
Shamus Tabriz is included in the upcoming exhibition, Color Study,
on view in the Museum's Appleby Foundation Gallery from Saturday, July 9
through Sunday, November 6, 2011. Shamus Tabriz was purchased with
funds provided by the N.E.A. and remains in the Asheville Art Museum's
Permanent Collection.
June 23, 2011
 Karen Karnes (1925 - )
Stoneware Batter Pitcher, circa
1953.
Ceramic, 4.75 x 9.5 x 6.63 inches.
Museum purchase with funds
provided by June and Vito Lenoci, Helga and Jack Beam and Pamela L. Myers in
memory of James Roy Moody.
Asheville
Art Museum Collection.
2004.05.01.82.
Born in 1925 in New York City,
ceramic artist Karen Karnes is the daughter of Jewish garment workers from
Russia and Poland. As a child, Karnes lived with her parents in an
experimental, left-wing community devoted to teaching extreme freedom—an area
known in New York City as Bronx Coops.
In 1939, Karnes attended the High
School for Music and Arts in New York, an alternative, public high school open
from 1936 to 1984. In 1942, Karnes began attending Brooklyn College. It was
during her studies at the college that the young artist first met architect
Serge Chermayeff. Chermayeff, who later taught Karnes, was known for his design
course inspired by the techniques of the Bauhaus, a world-renowned design
school once located in Berlin, Germany that was permanently shut down by the
Nazi Regime in 1933. With the encouragement of Chermayeff, Karnes also spent
the summer of 1947 studying design under Joseph Albers, a Bauhaus Master who
taught at Black Mountain College at the time.
Community has always played a
significant role in Karnes’s art. From the neighborhood of her childhood to her
years spent at Brooklyn College, Karnes allowed the sense of community she
experienced to play a role in the creation of her art. Following the summer of
1947, during which Karnes studied under Albers, the artist returned to Brooklyn
College where she then met David Weinrib, a ceramic artist and abstract
sculptor whom she later married. It was after the pair’s chance encounter and
their time spent together at Alfred University in the 1940s, that Karnes
discovered her passion for clay.
In 1952, Karnes and Weinrib were
offered a shared position at Black Mountain College to teach ceramics as
potters-in-residence. It was during her time spent at Black Mountain College
that Karnes created Stoneware Batter Pitcher (circa 1953). Serving as a
testament to the lasting legacy of Karnes and her fellow artists working at
Black Mountain College, whose aesthetic influence is still felt today
throughout the world, Stoneware Batter Pitcher is included in the Asheville Art
Museum’s current exhibition A Chosen Path: The Ceramic Art of Karen Karnes.
In 1954, Karnes moved to the Gate
Hill Cooperative, an idealistic experimental community located in Stony Point,
New York. While working at the cooperative, Karnes lived with several other
avant-garde, experimental American artists including John Cage and her
then-husband, David Weinrib. In 1967, Karnes taught a class at Penland School
of Crafts. Following her time at Penland, Karnes began heavily utilizing the
process of salt glazing in her pottery, which later gained her international
recognition.
Karnes has received much critical
acclaim for her work, including two Artist’s Fellowships from the National
Endowment for the Arts in 1976 and 1988, among many other awards. Over the
course of her career, she has created some of the most iconic pottery of the
late 20th and early 21st centuries. She remains one of the medium’s most
influential working potters and is a mentor to several generations of studio
potters. The Museum has an interest in ceramics with ties to Western North
Carolina. Karen Karnes is a major figure in post World War II ceramics and the
rise of the studio craft movement. Not only is she known for her own work, but
she is recognized for her role as an educator at Black Mountain College and
Penland School of Crafts where she inspired many younger ceramic artists.
Presently, Karnes continues to create new works of art at her home and studio
in Vermont. Stoneware Batter Pitcher is currently on view in A Chosen Path: The
Ceramic Art of Karen Karnes. This exhibition will remain on view at the Asheville
Art Museum in the Appleby Foundation Gallery until Sunday June 26, 2011.
June 15, 2011
Betty Waldo Parish (1910-1986)
St. Vedast, London, circa 1950.
Engraving on paper, 15.88 x 10.88
inches.
Asheville Art Museum Collection.
Gift of Elizabeth Roebling.
2003.22.02.62.
Betty Waldo Parish was born in 1910
to an American family in Cologne, Germany. Prior to World War I when Parish was
a child, she and her family moved to Evanston, Illinois. In the 1930s, Parish
studied at the Art Students League in New York alongside fellow student
Reginald Marsh and artist John Sloan, who taught at the League during the same
time period. The Art Students League was founded in 1875 by a group of artists,
many of whom had previously studied at the National Academy of Design in New
York during the post-Civil War era.
Parish was a painter and engraver
best known for her landscapes, cityscapes and detailed graphics of New York
City, Provincetown and the Adirondacks. Inspired by her fellow artists from the
Art Students League, Parish's work was part of the American Scene-Urban style.
The artists of this style were dedicated to expressing the loneliness of city
life, highlighting the plight of every man in the urban arena while lifting up
the underdog.
Parish's body of artwork includes
engravings like St. Vedast, London, pictured above. Engraving is a
technique that produces a print made from a metal surface that has been incised
with special tools called burins or gravers. The artist carves into the metal,
then inks the surface and produces a print. Engraving is the earliest intaglio printing process
which dates from the first half of the fifteenth century.
Parish was a member of the Society
of American Etchers, the National Association of Women Artists and the Pen and
Brush Club. Parish's works are included in collections around the country and
overseas, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of
Chicago, the Library of Congress, the British Museum, the Museum of the City of
New York and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Parish's body of artwork
has received numerous accolades including several Patron's Prizes, a research
award granted by the National Association of Women Artists, and a National Arts
Club Award for graphics.
Significant to the Museum's
collection, the work of Parish and her fellow printmakers who were supported by
the WPA's Federal Art Project gave rise to the acceptance of printmaking as a
form of creative media. Parish's work relates closely to the work of WPA
artists housed in the permanent collection, including pieces currently featured
in the Museum's exhibition Artists at Work: American Printmakers and the WPA,
on view through Sunday, September 25, 2011. Of further significance, the Museum
is fortunate to have a portrait of Betty Waldo Parish by Guy Pene du Bois
(1884-1958), making Parish one of the few artists in the collection of whom we
have a portrait as well as original work. Parish studied under the noted
portrait painter during her time in New York.
St. Vedast, London depicts a cityscape of a London street corner with a
steeple in the background. The streets are without person or vehicle. St.
Vedast is a church in London that was designed by Christopher Wren in 1670-73. St.
Vedast, London is currently on display as part of the exhibition An
Inside View in the Holden Community Gallery of the Asheville Art Museum
through Sunday, July 10, 2011. This piece was a gift to the Asheville Art
Museum from Elizabeth Roebling, daughter of the artist.
June 8, 2011
Lucille Lossiah (1957- ).
White Oak and Maple Market Basket
with Butternut Dye, 2008.
14 x 20.25 x 8.25 inches. 2008
Art Nouveaux Purchase.
Asheville Art Museum Collection.
2008.28.04.58.
Born in Cherokee, North Carolina in
1957, Lucille Lossiah carries on the Cherokee tradition of basket making that
has been passed down among her family for generations. The artist originally
learned basket making from her mother, Mary Jane Lossiah, and her grandmother,
Betty Long Lossiah. Her sister Ramona Lossiah is also a basket maker. According
to the artist, her mother always stressed the importance of preserving their
heritage through the tradition of basket making. Today, Lucille continues the
tradition, passing on the techniques of the craft to both her nieces and her
students at Cherokee High School.
In keeping with the tradition of the
Cherokee basket makers who preceded her, Lucille Lossiah works with maple,
white oak and river cane. Beginning in the 1940s, basket makers noticed that it
was becoming more difficult to harvest white oak for baskets as most of the
trees had been cut for timber to clear land for roads and other purposes. Betty
Lossiah (1903-2002), Lucille Lossiah’s grandmother, was among the first to
discover that the red maple tree could provide a suitable substitute for white
oak in crafting baskets. As a result, other basket makers began experimenting
with maple splits and soon discovered that dyes were glossier and more vibrant
in maple than in other basket making materials.
Over the past 120 years, the craft
of basket making has played an important role in carving out opportunities for
economic and professional growth. Basket making was a source of income for the
sisters and their family when they were growing up. As an active member of the
Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, Inc., the oldest Native American arts
cooperative in the nation, Lucille continues to travel around the country
demonstrating and selling her baskets alongside her sister, Ramona.
Over the years, Lucille has been
recognized for her craftsmanship, winning awards at the Cherokee Indian Fall
Festival and the Cherokee Art Market. The artist’s work has also been exhibited
at the Atlanta History Center. Lucille Lossiah was one of six Native American
artists recognized by the First Peoples Fund to receive the prestigious
Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award fellowship. Annually the organization
selects American Indian artists who “manifest self-awareness and a sense of
responsibility to sustain the cultural fabric of a community.”
The Asheville Art Museum’s collection
focuses on American art of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are several areas
of special interest within this focus, including regional crafts and Cherokee
art. This summer the Museum will present an exhibition titled A Tisket A
Tasket: Appalachian, Cherokee and Low Country Baskets. This exhibition will
examine three world renowned basket making traditions located in our region,
namely, those of the Appalachian Mountains, the Cherokee, and of the Low
Country of the Carolinas. White Oak and Maple Basket with Butternut Dye (2008)
is one of the works that will be featured in this exhibition, which will be on
view in the Museum’s Holden Community Gallery July 15, 2011 through January 8,
2012.
May 25, 2011
Dox Thrash (1893-1965)
The Champ, circa 1938
Carborundum print, 7.88 x 5.25”
Asheville Art Museum Collection,
2006.22.01.63
Dox Thrash was born in Griffin,
Georgia. Like many other African Americans in the south, Thrash moved north
seeking work at the young age of 15. After three years working in the circus
and in Vaudeville, he arrived in Chicago. Thrash studied art first through a
correspondence school, then at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from
1914 to 1917.
In World War I Thrash joined the Army and served in France in the 365th
Infantry Regiment, 183rd Brigade, 92nd Division, also known as the Buffalo
Soldiers. During his tour of duty, Thrash was injured by poison gas and
experienced shell shock. Following the end of World War I and his full
recovery, Thrash completed his art studies at the Graphic Sketch Club in
Philadelphia, where he studied from 1918 to 1923.
From 1934 to 1942, Thrash was a printmaker in the Pennsylvania Federal Arts
Project, one of several government-sponsored art programs funded by the Works
Progress Administration. Thrash is often credited as the inventor, and at times
the co-inventor, of the carborundum print process. Carborundum prints use a
carbon-based abrasive to burnish copper plates, allowing an artist to create an
image that can produce a print in tones ranging from pale gray to deep black.
Thrash used the carborundum method, similar to the more difficult and
complicated mezzotint process developed in the seventeenth century, as his
primary medium for much of his career. Many of his greatest works were created
utilizing the carborundum printmaking process.
An African American himself, Thrash spent the later years of his life
encouraging the artistry of young African Americans. Although Thrash received
little attention for his artwork during his lifetime, the Philadelphia Museum
of Art recognized the artist’s unique contributions to the field of
printmaking, opening an exhibition titled Dox Thrash: An African-American
Master Printmaker Rediscovered (http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/2002/48.html),
almost 40 years after his death.
Thrash is best known for his realistic depictions of African American life in
the 20th century. The Champ depicts an African American boxer. The image
shows the fighter’s head and shoulders, his chin resting on one of his boxing
gloves. The artist’s careful attention to detail portrays a man who appears
introspective, seemingly reflecting on his new status as champion, or perhaps
recalling a time in the past when he was once known as The Champ.
May 5, 2011
Betty
Parsons (1900-1982).
Untitled, 1978.
Color lithograph. 29.63 x 21.13 inches.
Collection of the Asheville Art Museum.
Gift of Brian E. Butler. 2007.24.01.61.
Betty Parsons (1900-1982) was born
Betty Bierne Pierson. She grew up in New York City in an upper class family. At
age 13 Parsons attended the 1913 Armory Show, the exhibition that introduced
America to European avant-garde art. Many people found the work shocking, but
Parsons embraced the work because it showed a "new spirit." This
event instilled in Parsons a lifelong passion for modern art. In 1917, she even
turned down a position on the U.S. Olympic tennis team to pursue her interest
in art.
Parsons married wealthy socialite,
Schuyler Livingston Parsons in 1919. They divorced in 1922 when she moved to
Paris. From 1923 to 1933 Parsons studied sculpture in Paris and was very much a
part of the avant-garde art circle that included Gertrude Stein, Alexander
Calder, Man Ray and others. The stock market crash forced her to return to the
United States where she spent three years (1933-1936) teaching in Santa
Barbara, California. Afterwards, she returned to New York City.
Primarily remembered as an art
dealer, Parsons promoted the careers of numerous abstract artists of the 1940s.
She has been called the "den mother" of Abstract Expressionism.
Parsons learned the art gallery business through a series of brief
apprenticeships in various New York galleries. In 1946 she opened her own
gallery where she gave artists total freedom with their exhibitions. Because
she had many connections to upper class families in New York, she created
bridges between art collectors and artists. Parsons exhibited many emerging
artists including Barnett Newman, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, Irene Rice
Pereira, Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still.
While Parsons never showed her own
work at the Betty Parsons Gallery, she remained committed to her artistry. She
began painting in the 1930s, later working in the Abstract Expressionist
manner.
In the 1970s, Parsons moved to Long
Island to a cliff-side studio built for her by sculptor Tony Smith, where she
took up sculpture. She developed a practice of salvaging scraps of what she
called "carpenter's throwaways," bits of wood and other materials
that would wash up on the beach near her home. She used these materials to make
her painted wood "constructions." Untitled (1978) was inspired
by her "constructions." The relationship can be seen by comparing it
to a sculpture in the collection of Parrish Art Museum.
Untitled (1978) is currently on view in Looking Back: Celebrating
60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum.
April 13, 2011
Fielding Dawson (1930-2002).
Charles Olson, 1956.
Ink
drawing and collage on cardboard, 11.88 x 12.5 inches.
Collection of the Asheville Art Museum. Black Mountain College Collection, gift
of the estate of Jonathan Williams. 2010.20.29.
Fielding Dawson (1930-2002) was born
in New York City. He studied at Black Mountain College with Charles Olson. He
was primarily known as writer, but he also painted and worked with collage.
Dawson attended Black Mountain College from 1949 to 1953. Afterward he served
in the United States Army from 1953 to 1955. He is the author of 21 books, including
short stories and novels. Dawson’s novel, “The Black Mountain Book,” was
published in 1991.
Dawson was known for his
stream-of-consciousness style of writing. He used minimal punctuation to
emphasize the immediacy of his thoughts. His direct approach to writing was
similar to that of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.
Dawson was also a teacher. He worked
with prisoners at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, NY, and at-risk
students at Upward Bound High School in Hartwick, NY. Dawson often wrote about
his experiences as a teacher. Dawson said that he expected the truth in his
students’ work, and as disturbing as that could often be, he refused to look
away. This passion for reality ran through his life and work.
This work is a portrait of the poet
Charles Olson (1910-1970). Olson taught literature at Black Mountain College
starting as a part-time lecturer in 1948 and by the time of the College’s
closing in 1957 was the titular head of the school.
Charles Olson the artwork has an
interesting history in its own right. The collage is an early artwork by
Dawson. It was originally meant to be the album cover for a Folkways recording
of Olson reading his poems. When that project fell through, Jonathan Williams,
founder of the Jargon Society planned to use it for the back cover of “Jargon
24, The Maximus Poems.” This book was co-published with Corinth Press which
wanted to use a standard paperback book format and the square format collage
did not fit well in this more vertical proportion. After this effort it became
part of Jonathan Williams’s personal collection until it was given to the
Asheville Art Museum.
This work is currently on view in Looking
Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum.
March 30, 2011
Harry Shokler (1896-1978).
Early Spring, 1946.
Screen
print, 15.13 x 22 inches.
Collection
of the Asheville Art Museum. Gift of Leah Karpen. 1997.08.02.64.
Harry Shokler was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He studied at the Cincinnati Art
Academy, the Chester Springs Academy (Pennsylvania) and the New York School of
Fine and Applied Arts. A fellowship enabled him to spend several years painting
in Europe and North Africa. While overseas he had a solo exhibition of his
paintings at the Gallerie de Marsan in Paris. Shokler also participated in the
Salon des Beaux Arts in Paris. After he returned to the United States, he
had solo exhibitions at Grand Central Galleries, New York City and the
Baltimore Museum of Art. For forty years Shokler and his wife, the writer
Dahris Martin, made their home in Londonderry, Vermont.
Shokler
was noted as a printmaker. He worked with a variety of printmaking processes while
employed by the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Artists Project (WPA).
Because of his interest in color, Shokler began to explore the possibilities of
silk screen printing. Early Spring depicts a leafless tree with a road and
fields in foreground done in greens and browns; the background consists of
hills and sky in various blues and grays. With its many bold colors is a nice
example of the potential that Shokler saw in screen printing.
His screen prints, acclaimed for
their extraordinary artistry and skill, are in the collections of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City), the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
Carnegie Institute (Pittsburgh), Library of Congress (Washington, DC), the Princeton
Print Club and the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC). He was the
recipient of several awards and author of the standard “Artists Manual of Silk
Screen Printing.” He was a member of the Silk Screen Group, president of the
National Serigraph Society and taught screen printing at the Brooklyn Museum of
Art School.
Before
the 1930s, screen printing was considered a commercial process and not suitable
for creating works of art. Harry Shokler and a handful of other artists
participating in a pilot screen printing program for the WPA transformed screen
printing, or serigraphy, into a process used in the production of fine art
prints.
Leah
Karpen, who donated two of Shokler’s works to the Asheville Art Museum, had a
personal connection to the artist. Her sister-in-law Ruth Robinson was
Shokler’s niece.
Early Spring is currently on view in
the Museum’s Looking Forward installation of the permanent collection.
Opening April 30, Artists at Work: American Printmakers and the WPA will
include screen prints and other printmaking processes used by artists in the
WPA.
March 9, 2011
John Sloan
(1871-1951)
Fun One Cent, 1905
Etching, 9.25 x 11.63 inches sheet size
Asheville Art Museum Collection.
Museum purchase with funds provided by Leah Karpen, Fran Myers, Kenneth Myers,
Russell and Ladene Newton and Ute Roth in memory of Nat C. Myers and Dick
Albyn.
2009.06.63
John Sloan was born in Lock Haven,
Pennsylvania and grew up in Philadelphia. He studied at the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts in 1892, with Thomas Anshutz, and later with Robert
Henri. Sloan worked as an illustrator for two Philadelphia newspapers, the Enquirer
and the Press. Sloan moved to New York in 1904, and continued
working in commercial art until 1916 when he began a long association
with the Art Students League as a teacher. He was a member of The Eight,
a loose association of artists.
Along with Sloan, The Eight
included Arthur B. Davies, William Glackens, Robert Henri, Ernest Lawson,
George Luks, Maurice Prendergast and Everett Shinn. They exhibited as a group
only once, at the Macbeth Gallery in 1908. Many of these artists, including
Sloan, had a strong interest in depicting scenes from everyday life and became
known as the “Ashcan School.” Sloan was deeply concerned about the life of the
working class and joined the Socialist Party in 1910. He was the art editor of The
Masses from 1912 until 1916.
John Sloan was highly regarded as a
painter, but he was also known for his extraordinary prints, many depicting in
New York City from the tenements to the art galleries. In the 1913 Armory show
Sloan exhibited two paintings and five prints. And while Sloan is commonly associated
with urban views, he also created landscapes of Gloucester, MA and Santa Fe, NM
and was noted for figure studies. Fun One Cent, depicts a Kinetoscope
parlor. The first public parlor opened in New York City at Broadway and 27th
Street in 1894. Developed by Thomas Edison, the Kinetoscope was one of the
first successful motion picture devices. Its primary limitation was that only
one person could watch at a time. But in the late 19th and early 20th
century they were wildly popular and Kinetoscope parlors opened all across the
United States and abroad.
March 2, 2011
James Chapin (1887-1975)
Nine Workmen, 1942-45
Oil on canvas, 42.75 x 57.75 inches
Asheville Art Museum Collection.
Museum purchase. 1985.04.2.21
James
Chapin (1887-1975) was born in West Orange, New Jersey. From 1911 to 1912
Chapin studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Antwerp, Belgium. After returning
to the United States he lived in Greenwich Village. During this time he
learned about Cubism and Cezanne, but his main interest was the portrayal of
people and his subject matter varied from farmers and farm life to workmen and
urban life.
In
1924 he moved to a log cabin in northwestern New Jersey, whose bucolic setting
became a dominant influence on his artistic career. In 1935 Chapin began
teaching advanced portrait painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
Arts and in the late 1930s; he accepted a teaching position in California.
There he met and married Mary Fischer. James Chapin is the grandfather of
musician Harry Chapin.
In
1969 the Chapins moved to Toronto. Shortly after becoming a Canadian citizen
and only days after his eighty-eighth birthday, Chapin died in July 1975.
In
the 1930s and into the early 1940s, Social Realism was the dominant style in
American art. Three of the best known Social Realists are Thomas Hart Benton,
John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood. The Works Progress Administration’s Federal
Artists Project produced murals, easel paintings and prints, predominantly
Social Realists works that emphasized the lives of farmers and ranchers in
rural areas and workers and “the common man” in urban settings. After World War
II ended, the United States embraced Abstract Expressionism and many of the
artists associated with Social Realism lapsed into obscurity.
This
change in style, and perhaps his move to Canada in the 1960s, affected the
career of James Chapin. The past decade has seen a resurgence of interest in
Social Realism including many exhibitions. The Asheville Art Museum purchased
this work in 1985. It has been enjoyed by generations of school children and
adults, first in the Museum’s location at the Civic Center and now in our home
in Pack Place. The Museum moved to Pack Place 19 years ago this month.
Chapin’s
Nine Workmen shows nine men of varying age and race and profession. The men are
treated with dignity and respect. The workers in the foreground and those in
the background are painted more softly than the figures in the center. This
creates a sense of depth to the painting.
The
painting is currently on view, so whether you are seeing it as an old friend or
for the first time, drop by and spend a moment with The Nine Workmen.
February 16, 2011
John Pfahl (1939- )
Fish,
Cypress Gardens, Florida, 2001.
Type C color negative print, 20 x 24
inches.
Museum purchase with funds provided
by the Nat C. Myers Photography Fund.
Asheville Art Museum Collection.
2011.06.92.
John Pfahl is an important American photographer. He
was among a small group of artists who, beginning in the post war years, began
to explore the limits of color photography. Pfahl’s photographs combine
beautiful colors, dynamic compositions, whimsy and sometimes a dash of humor.
Many of his image capture landscapes modified by humanity. His photographs
blazed a trail that has been followed by new generations of younger
photographers. John Pfahl first became known for his color landscape
images with his 1974 Altered Landscapes series. He received a Bachelor
of Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University School of Art and his Master of
Arts degree from Syracuse University School of Communications. Pfahl taught at
Rochester Institute of Technology from 1968 to 1983. Pfahl has appeared in
over 100 group and solo exhibitions, and his work is represented in at least
forty-five public and corporate collections. The Asheville Art Museum has
approximately 400 photographs in its permanent collection. The collection
includes a wide range of processes and ranges in date from the early 20th
century to the early 21st, including works by many significant
American photographers. The collection includes works by Shelby Lee Adams,
Diane Arbus, Ruth Bernhard, Lee Friedlander, Sally Gall, O. Winston Link, Jerry
Uelsmann, Jonathan Williams and Garry Winogrand. The two Pfahl works acquired
this year add significantly to the collection.
January 31 - February 6, 2011
Kent Washburn, Untitled
1967, black and white silver gelatin print, 10.5 x 13.5 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection. Gift of Mrs. Helen L. Gumpert. 1975.04.27.91.
Kent Washburn (1939- ) was born in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated from Belmont College and conducted graduate studies at Vanderbilt University. He moved to Asheville, North Carolina and worked as an administrative assistant with the Redevelopment Commission. In 1966 he shot 46 photographs for the Commission’s Urban Redevelopment project to document the residents and living conditions of the East Riverside district of Asheville. These photographs were exhibited at the Asheville Art Museum in May 2004. Washburn left Asheville soon after he took these photos and pursued a career in law, becoming a District Court Judge in Burlington, North Carolina.
A portrait of young boy on a porch looking at the photographer, this photograph is a prime example of the humanity found in Washburn’s documentary photography.
Washburn’s Untitled is a testimony to the Museum’s photography collecting goal. This piece is currently on view in the Alone and Together gallery of the exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum. Come enjoy a uniquely Asheville photograph.
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online!
January 24 - 30, 2011
Elaine Schmitt Urbain, Susanna
1983, watercolor and gouache painting, 21.63 x 15 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection. Gift of Lorna Blaine Halper. 2007.27.06.20.
Elaine Schmitt Urbain (1925 – 2004) was born in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. She was educated in art from an early age by her grandfather, who founded the Conrad Schmitt Stained Glass Studio. She went on to enroll at Black Mountain College, where she studied under Lyonel Feininger, Josef Albers and Robert Motherwell. During her time there, Schmitt also met her future husband, fellow artist John Urbain. She was known as an artist for works such as lithographs and drawings illustrating her time spent in Paris. Also a prolific peace activist, she employed her drawing talents in creating portraits of individuals such as Pope John XXIII while participating in traveling campaigns. Later in life, she went on to produce her own monthly television show in Westchester, New York.
Her work has been shown in the United States, France and Spain and is included in the Permanent Collection of the Asheville Art Museum. The Yvette Torres Fine Art gallery also holds a significant selection of her work.
A portrait of a woman from the waist up leaning against the back of a red chair, Susanna also includes the word “Mallorca” written across the top and “Susanna” across the bottom. It is an excellent example of the important aspects of portraiture and written text in Urbain’s artistic career.
Susanna is a testimony to the Museum’s Black Mountain College Collection. It was donated by Lorna Blaine Halper, another Black Mountain College artist and one of the first to contribute toward this collecting goal. This piece is currently on view in the exhibition The Director’s Cut I: 1995 – 2010 . Come enjoy the portraiture skills of an amazing female Black Mountain College artist.
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online!
January 17 - 23, 2011
Charlie Lucas, All I Can See Now
c. 1990, mixed media painting, 22 x 29.5 x .75 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection. Gift of Randy Siegel. 2007.04.20.
Charlie Lucas (1951- ) was born in Jefferson County, Alabama. One of 14 children, Lucas often played alone as he was always building things from found wood and metal. At age 14 he left home and traveled to different towns, taking odd jobs and working in construction. In 1971 Lucas returned home to marry and start a family in Pink Lily, Alabama. A serious back injury put Lucas in bed for almost a year. While recovering from back surgery, he asked God to help him find something to do that no one else could do. That is when he started working in metal.
Although he has no formal art training, Lucas’s sculptural work combines skills he learned from observing his grandfather’s mechanical and automotive repair techniques, his grandmother’s basket-weaving and his great grandfather’s blacksmithing and gained him the nickname “Tin Man”. Lucas is also an accomplished painter. Humor is frequently an underlying theme in his paintings and sculptures, both of which combine realistic and quasi-abstract elements. Lucas’s work has been included in numerous exhibitions and museum collections. In recent years, he has traveled widely, lecturing at the invitation of an African-American Studies Scholar at Yale University and spending time as an artist-in-residence in France.
With a landscape in the foreground, a fence at the lower left and three abstracted heads at the top of the painting, All I Can See Now is a prime example of Lucas’s painting. In line with his use of found objects, all three heads have real eye glasses attached.
All I Can See Now is a testimony to the Museum’s collecting focal point of Outsider Art and is a fun work with Lucas’s sense of humor and a deeper narrative awaiting viewers. This piece is currently on view in the Seen and Unseen gallery of the exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum. Come in and take some time to enjoy all of the fascinating elements of this mixed media painting!
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online!
January 10 - 16, 2011
Joseph Fiore, Green Landscape
1953, oil painting, 30 x 40 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection. Museum Purchase. 1996.04.03.21.
Joseph Fiore (1925 – 2009) was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He first came to Western North Carolina in the summer of 1946 to study at Black Mountain College. As a student, Fiore studied with Josef Albers and Ilya Bolotowsky. He became a member of the College’s faculty in 1949 and taught until the college closed in 1956. Fiore then settled in New York City and continued his career in art by working with the 10th Street Art Scene. He later taught at The Philadelphia College of Art, The Maryland Institute College of Art and the National Academy. He has had several one-person shows and his work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum, Corcoran Gallery, the National Academy and the Asheville Art Museum. Fiore was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Prize at the National Academy of Design in New York in May 2001.
A nonobjective image in greens, blues and blacks, Green Landscape can be seen as a North Carolina image, with its evocation of mountain and forest both in color-dominant greens and sun-dappled with yellow and mauve. The painting suggests the rhythmic patchwork of foliage that covers the hills around Black Mountain and the surrounding area.
Green Landscape is another testimony to the Museum’s collecting goal of Black Mountain College artists and is a lush and enticing work, especially on a cold winter day! This piece is currently on view in the exhibition The Director’s Cut I: 1995 – 2010. Come in and take a visual vacation from our snowy landscape!
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online!
January 3 - January 10, 2011
 Jose de Creeft, Head
1959, stone sculpture in granite, 12.25 inches x 9 inches x 13.25 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection. Gift of Lorrie Goulet. 2008.24.31.
Jose de Creeft was involved with sculpture at an early age as an apprentice in a workshop in Barcelona. When he studied sculpture in Paris in 1905, he worked with clay the traditional way, which involved finishing the piece with a bronze caste or foundry. But in 1915, de Creeft became one of the first artists to re-introduce direct stone carving. He carried this technique with him to the United States, where his art flourished. Head is an example of one of the popular female stone carvings he created during this time.
De Creeft was a teacher of sculpture at the Art Students League in New York and was invited to teach at Black Mountain College for the 1944 summer session. This piece was given to the Museum by his wife, Lorrie Goulet, who studied under Josef Albers and de Creeft during her academic year at Black Mountain College in 1943 and 1944.
Head is a testimony to the Museum’s collecting goal of Black Mountain College artists as well as of sculpture. This piece is currently on view in the exhibition The Director’s Cut I: 1995 – 2010 . Come in and see this beautiful masterpiece for yourself!
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online!
December 27, 2010 - January 2, 2011
 W. Louis Jones, Metal Forms in Cement
1969 ca, Acrylic painting on masonite, 58.75 inches x 106.5 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection. Gift of Sonia and Isaac: Rose and Abraham Luski. 1995.15.24.
W. Louis Jones is a Post-Real Life artist and sculptor who was raised in Durham, North Carolina. He has taught at universities across the nation and has received several awards including the New York State Council of the Arts Grant in 1973.
Metal Forms in Cement is a two-part magic realism painting based on a rubbing made by the artist in 1967. According to Jones, the work was completed in about 1969 or 1970 and is a portrait of a sidewalk in front of the Atlanta School of Art. The style of Magic Realism attempts to depict reality with a dream-like quality and allows viewers to seek deeper meaning in the piece.
This piece is currently on view in the exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum in the Seen and Unseen gallery. Looking Back celebrates the Museum’s collection of American art of the 20th and 21st centuries and highlights some of the Museum's holdings in Southeastern and Western North Carolina artists. This large piece is worth taking a look at in person to experience it fully and find your own idea of its meaning!
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online!
December 20 - 26, 2010
Anne Lemanski, Battle Zone
2007, Copper, Vintage Paper and Artificial Sinew, 10 inches x 8inches x 8 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2007 Art Nouveaux Purchase.2007.18.02.59.
Anne Lemanski is a former resident artist of Penland School of Crafts and is a current resident of Spruce Pine, North Carolina. She is known for her sculpture creations with frameworks made of copper wire which are covered in vintage cloths and stitched together. The artist calls this cloth the “skin” of the piece. Most frequently, her art is politically charged in subtle ways as she chooses subjects like animals or birds to portray her view point on contemporary issues.
Battle Zone was purchased by the Museum’s collecting group called Art Nouveaux in 2007. Art Nouveaux is a group of people who are new to collecting art. This piece fits into the Museum’s permanent collection because of the collecting focus on contemporary crafts that combine elements of functional wares, sculptural form and artistic meaning. Battle Zone, in particular, is a functional mixed media container with images that portray Lemanski’s idea of the war in Iraq. You can see the piece in person, currently on view in the exhibition The Director’s Cut I: 1995 – 2010.
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online!
The collecting focus of the Museum steers its educational, exhibition, and research activities preserving important aspects of our national and regional heritage through strategic collecting. The Museum has established its expertise in the collection of American art of the 20th and 21st century. The Asheville Art Museum’s Permanent Collection now totals more than 2,500 works of art and nearly 5,000 architectural drawings. In 2009, as the Museum entered its 61st year, it put together two large exhibitions with a close look at its permanent collection - highlighting collecting strategies, honoring art donors, showcasing specific pieces in its collection and planning for the future. Journey with me as we explore the Asheville Art Museum’s permanent collection with an in depth look at a Work of the Week.
December 13 - 19, 2010
Paul Georges, Winter Landscape
1963, lithograph on paper, 23 inches x 28.87 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection. Anonymous gift. 1981.17.080.61.
Known for his still lifes, self portraits, landscapes and large-scale figurative allegories, Paul Georges created art until his sudden death at age 78 in 2002. Georges claimed his paintings were often inspired by his muse, whom he envisioned as a large woman. During his career, he often split his time between New York City and Normandy, France, where his studios were located. His work often pointed to several different styles including surrealism, realism and abstract expressionism.
Winter Landscape is a great example of Georges interesting use of space and color. This piece is currently located in our exhibition, Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum in the Urban and Rural Gallery. Looking Back celebrates the Museum’s collection of American art of the 20th and 21st centuries and highlights some of the Museum's holdings in Southeastern and Western North Carolina artists. This piece is captivating in person and occupies the room as juxtaposition with fall and summer landscapes as well.
December 6 - 12, 2010
 Lee Friedlander, Biltmore
1994, Photograph, Black and White Silver Gelatin Print, 5.5 inches x 3.13 inches. 2008 Collectors' Circle Purchase. 2008.36.02.91
Considered one of the most important living American photographers, Lee Friedlander started his photography career as a freelancer in New York City in 1956, capturing images of jazz musicians for record covers. Focusing on the “social landscape,” Friedlander’s photos seek to capture modern life. In September, 1985, Playboy Magazine published some of the photographer’s most famous examples of work: black and white nude photographs of Madonna from the late 1970’s.
Biltmore is a piece from one of Friedlander’s most recent projects where he photographed the work of Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of the Niagara reservation, Washington Park, the U.S. Capitol building landscape and entire parkway systems in Buffalo and Louisville as well as New York City's Central Park, and the grounds of Biltmore Estate. By providing worthy testimony to our era’s renewed interest in preserving the finest landscape architecture of the 19th century, Friedlander’s black-and-white photographs celebrate the essential pleasures of seeing and being in Olmsted’s living works of art. This piece will also be a part of our exhibition opening Friday, December 10, The Olmsted Project, Photographs by Lee Friedlander, which chronicles this project.
The Museum acquired this piece as a testimony to its long term goal of collecting contemporary photography as well as regionally and nationally significant pieces of art. Biltmore was a Collectors’ Circle purchase in 2008. The Collectors' Circle is a group for dedicated art lovers exploring personal art collecting, as well as supporting the Museum's permanent collection through an annual purchase of art work.
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online!
November 29 - December 5, 2010
 Mark Peiser, Cherry Blossoms
1980, Glass, blown and torch worked, 5 inches x 3.13 inches x 3.13 inches. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. George Ovanezian. 2004.18.02.50.
Mark Peiser became involved with the studio glass movement in 1967 as the first glass resident at the Pendland School of Crafts, which was the first school of its kind to offer instruction on glass making. With a keen eye, a steady hand and a curious spirit, Peiser explored the chemistry of glass and its properties in order to stretch the boundaries of the art form. Cherry Blossoms is a piece from a period in Peiser’s career where he created paperweight vases with intricate details of trees, flowers and landscapes.
Part of the Museum’s collecting focus is on modern studio glass. In 2004, the Asheville Art Museum mounted an exhibition of his glass art and received several of his pieces as gifts. This piece was a gift from Dr. and Mrs. George Ovanzian, a couple who live just outside of New York City who decided this piece was too significant to own privately. Thanks to their contribution, Cherry Blossoms is now on display in the exhibition The Director’s Cut I: 1995 – 2010 .
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online.
November 22 - 28, 2010
 John Baeder, Market Street Café
1981, lithograph on paper, 15.37 inches by 22 inches. Gift of Jerald L. Melberg Gallery, Inc. 1985.12.2.61.
John Baeder is best known for his photo realistic paintings of American diners, which he started making in black-and-white in 1972. He claims to have gained an appreciation for “visual ecstasy” during his travels as a child which later translated into art. His paintings were inspired mostly by the diner called “Magestic” which was located across the street from the “Biltmore” in Atlanta, where he lived for a brief time. He was especially enthralled with the hustle and bustle inside diners and with the choreography of cooks preparing food.
Market Street Café is currently on view in our exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum in the Urban and Rural Gallery. This gallery seeks to use juxtaposition of urban and rural images as a means to explore how our sense of place is tied with our sense of self. This painting is shown directly above last week’s Work of the Week, C&O by Robert Cottingham. Much like Cottingham, Baeder’s interpretation of the Urban landscape is the quest to preserve America’s past through iconic images. Looking Back celebrates the Asheville Art Museum's collection and highlights some of the Museum's holdings in Southeastern and Western North Carolina artists, including documenting and preserving works from the region's unique craft culture.
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online
November 15 - 21, 2010
Robert Cottingham, C&O
1989, lithograph on paper, 21.5 inches by 29.38 inches. Gift of Brian E. Butler. 2005.11.03.61.
Robert Cottingham’s paintings are far from conventional, representing a piece of America’s past that has almost completely diminished. His works have documented architecture and commercial signs from the 1940’s and 1950’s with great detail. Capturing true Americana, Cottingham embraces visions of grungy street signs, tattoo parlors, diner fronts and various advertisements. His paintings are urban, sentimental, humorous and endearing all at the same time!
This particular piece is a close-up view of the side of a railroad car with "C&O" and "32159" written on the side.You can see it in person in the current exhibition Looking Back:Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum .
C&O was given to the Museum by Brian E. Butler. Individuals and their gifts to the Museum significantly contribute to the Museum's growth; support like this piece allow the Museum to become a stronger steward to the community of regionally and nationally significant art so that it may educate and preserve it as cultural artifacts for generations to come.
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online.
November 8 - 14, 2010
Will  Henry Stevens, Untitled, Abstract Garden
Not dated, pastel drawing on paper, 14 inches x 17. 13 inches. Gift of Janet Stevens McDowell. 2001.12.15.44.
Born in 1881, Will Henry Stevens became interested in art when he was 10 years old and studied art at the Cincinnati Art Academy and the Art Students League. Beginning in 1916, Stevens and his family took vacations in Western North Carolina, which led to a teaching career in the summers here around 1920. Stevens was a prolific painter and a poetic colorist with works ranging from representational to non objective. The breathtaking landscape of the Blue Ridge Mountains fueled his creativity for his paintings inspired by nature. Stevens is considered by many a pioneer of modernism in Southern America.
Untitled, Abstract Garden is Stevens’ abstract vision of a flower garden with bits of fencing along the lower left. The vivid colors mix with an organic feel like one would experience in nature. Stevens often worked with abstract paintings of nature, like this one, but also painted more realistic views of landscapes as well.
This piece was donated to the Museum by Stevens’ daughter, Janet Stevens McDowell and is a testimony to the Museum’s dedication to collecting works with significance to the Southeast and Western North Carolina artists. You can see this piece in person on display in the exhibition The Director’s Cut I: 1995 – 2010.
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online.
November 1 - 7, 2010
 John Cage, Haiku
1952, print on paper, 4.75 inches x 12.88 inches. Museum purchase with funds provided by 2006 Collectors' Circle members Rob Pulleyn and Cherry and Paul Lentz Saenger. 2006.32.60a.
Two weeks ago, Work of the Week featured a portrait of John Cage. This week is one of our holdings of John Cage’s own works.
John Cage was talented as an artist and musician, creating compositions with unique musical notations. He is known for having collaborated with choreographer, Merce Cunningham to create music for modern dance as well as pioneering the idea of chance music. He was a student at Black Mountain College in 1948, 1952 and 1953 and experimented with watercolors, drawing and printmaking in the 1970s and 1980s. Although Cage was primarily known as a musician, the scores for his musical compositions are works of art themselves.
Haiku is a musical notation for one of Cage’s compositions which was written on hand-made paper. Only 300 copies of this piece, which is the first and only piece published by the Black Mountain College Music Press, were printed. It is named such because it includes three measures of five with seven and five quarter notes each, much like a Haiku in poetry is made with a five-seven-five word notation. The Museum’s collection also includes Cage’s Haiku Envelope .
One of the Museum’s collecting strategies is focused on Black Mountain College artists like John Cage as well as nationally significant pieces, since Cage is considered by many as one of the most influential creative voices in the 20th Century.
Come check out one of Cage’s watercolors currently on display in the exhibition The Director’s Cut I: 1995 – 2010 .
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online.
October 25 - 31, 2010
Connie Bostic, Recognition of Death
1988 ca, mixed media painting on plywood, 96.75 inches x 25 inches x 7 inches. Gift of Zone One Contemporary Gallery. 1992.16.20.
Connie Bostic is an Asheville artist and writer whose artistic endeavors are predominantly in mixed media. She exhibited her work at the Asheville Art Museum in October 1987 and has managed the Zone One Gallery since 1992.
Bostic is known to have worked closely with Charles Clemmons on art projects such as this piece called, Recognition of Death, which is only one painting in a series of 23. This series was a collection of a large procession of panels which became widely popular.
Recognition of Death depicts a human skeleton in a coffin-like box and is a piece in the Permanent Collection that points to the Museum’s dedication to acquiring art by Western North Carolina artists. It was donated to the Museum by the artist's own Zone One Gallery. This is also a perfect piece with which to celebrate Halloween!
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online!
October 18 - October 24, 2010
 Marianne Preger-Simon, Portrait of John Cage
1953, ink drawing on paper, 11.25"x9.88.” Gift of the artist. 2009.17.13.41.
Marianna Preger-Simon attended Black Mountain College in the summer of 1953 as a dance student of Merce Cunningham. On being a dance student, Preger-Simon said, "my plan was to become a psychiatrist...a plan which soon foundered, based on my clear preference for dance, art and language over science," on her Web site . Although she was not a visual artist, Preger-Simon produced art as part of the Black Mountain College curriculum. She often simply drew the artists surrounding her, many of whom are included in the Asheville Art Museum's Permanent Collection. Portrait of John Cage is a perfect example of this, being that the Museum’s holdings include some works by Cage himself.
This piece’s inclusion in the Permanent Collection points to the Museum’s dedication to collecting and preserving works by Black Mountain College artists as well as nationally significant works, considering John Cage is a well-known artist and composer.
You can see an example of Cage’s work in person currently on display in our newest exhibition the Director’s Cut I: 1995 – 2010 .
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online!
October 11 - October 17, 2010
 Alex Harris, Karl Marx Theater
1998/2008, photograph, type c color negative print, 139.5” x 49.6.” 2007 Collector’s Circle purchase. 2007.33.03.92
Photographer Alex Harris is well-known for his documentary style works as they relate to humanitarian issues. His riveting photographs have included many subjects including the American South and Southwest, Alaska, Cuba and his own family. Through his artistic viewpoint, viewers are not only taken to the scene of the photograph, but also are challenged to expand their view of the world seen through the lens.
Karl Marx Theater is a part of a series of photographs Harris completed in 1998 in Cuba. The series includes photographs taken from the inside of antique American automobiles looking through the windshield into a Cuban landscape. This particular picture was taken from inside a 1953 red interior Lincoln Capri.
“Fidel Castro's rise to power, seen through the window of the 1950's and early 60's, remains the American view of Cuba…Because of our economic embargo and their own government controlled media, Cubans have a narrow view of America that is also mired in the past. Ironically, the 1950's-era American automobiles that dominate Cuban roads provide a daily window - at once distorted and hauntingly accurate - through which Cubans view their own lives. With all of this in mind, in 1998 I made a series of landscapes of Havana through the windshields of American cars, hoping to see Cuba in a more accurate way and to discover something about the way in which Cubans and Americans frame their views of each other.” – Alex Harris, taken from the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University.
The Asheville Art Museum’s Collector’s Circle purchased this piece in 2007. This group of art collectors works each year to purchase a new piece of art to add to the Museum’s Permanent Collection! Karl Marx Theater is a testimony to the Museum’s dedication to collecting significant photographic pieces in the region and nationwide. Come view other carefully selected works from our Permanent Collection at our exhibition The Director’s Cut I: 1998-2010 on view starting Friday, October 15, 2010.
Learn more about this artist in our Permanent Collection online!
October 4 - October 10, 2010
Annie Ropetwister, Cherokee Basket
1925 ca, river cane, 11” x 12.5” x 9.” Gift of Robert S. Brunk. 2004.19.11.58
The donor of this piece took this basket to Cherokee in 1981 in search of its origin. He showed it to a basket maker who said it was probably made as a functional piece, rather than for sale. During the estimated date of its creation, this basket would have likely been used for storage in the home for anything from food to clothing. The basket maker also said it was possibly made by Annie Rope Twister.
This basket is a single weave made from river cane, which is the material still used to achieve the most intricate of basket designs. River cane can be found along most rivers in Western North Carolina and is the most traditional material used by the Cherokee Indians. This particular basket is dyed in variations of brown with bloodroot and walnut bark. The notched splint oak handle goes all the way around the basket and is notched at the base to give more stability.
This piece is currently on display in our exhibit Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum in the Geometric and Organic gallery and is a testimony to the Museum’s goal of collecting and preserving work from Cherokee artists. The fact that this once functional piece of history is now considered art is only part of what makes this piece breathtaking. Come see it in person!
Learn more about this piece in our Permanent Collection Online!
September 27 - October 3, 2010
 Lesley Dill, I See Visions
2004, lithograph with hand sewing, 27.75” x 21.25.” 2009 Art Nouveaux Purchase. 2010.01.01.60
Lesley Dill is known for her explorations of art through language, body, emotion and society. She works with a variety of disciplines including printmaking, photography, sculpture and performance art.
This interesting piece is currently on display in our exhibit Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum in the Seen and Unseen Gallery, which is intended to challenge our ideas of how we view art. I See Visions depicts a silhouette of a female figure in brown shrouded behind a piece of cloth. Written at the top is, “I was born with a veil,” and below the figure says, “I see visions.”
Guests are encouraged to dig deeper for meaning behind some works of art. In this piece, the title refers to a person born with a caul, a full face mask which sometimes covers the face of a newborn child. Although a rare occurrence, some legends say those born with a caul are able to see the future.
This piece was purchased by our Art Nouveaux, a group for those new to collecting who want to learn more about collecting art, art connoisseurship and more. The group also supports the Museum through an annual art purchase. One of the Museum’s collecting focuses is work from 20th and 21st Century artists and this is a stimulating addition to our diverse collection.
Come to our exhibit Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum to see this work in person and gather your own meaning from the other works in the Seen and Unseen Gallery!
Visit the Permanent Collection online for more information about this artist.
September 20 - 26, 2010
 Albert Lanier, E’s
Not dated, ink and pencil drawing on paper, 17” x 22.” Gift of the artist. 2009.18.01.40
Albert Lanier, who died in 2008 at age 81, was primarily known as an architect. After serving in the Navy in World War II, he enrolled in Black Mountain College in 1948 where he met his wife, famous sculptor Ruth Asawa. Lanier studied under the tutelage of Josef Albers and Buckminster Fuller. He absorbed his teachers’ forward-thinking in the realm of pattern and color, as depicted in E’s, which shows a pattern of black and white e’s with one red letter in the lower middle. This piece was influenced by the teachings of Albers, known widely for his homage to the square series where each square was mathematically related to one another in size and useful for superimposing the image. It seems each time you look at it, you can see a new pattern in the e’s!
This piece is a testimony to the Museum’s collecting strategy dedicated to preserving works from Black Mountain College Artists. Black Mountain College, located just outside of Asheville, was a unique school that used an interdisciplinary and experimental approach to arts education. Although it lasted only 24 years, from 1933-57, and enrolled fewer than 1200 students, Black Mountain College launched a remarkable number of the artists.
Come to our exhibit Sewell Sillman: Pushing Limits to see more of Albers-inspired works in person!
Also visit the Permanent Collection online for more information about this artist.
September 7 - 19, 2010
Pierre Daura, Fall at the McCorkle's Barn.
1942, oil painting on canvas board, 17.5” x 23.63”. Gift of Martha R. Daura. 1998.17.01.21
Fall is officially upon us starting
next week, and what better way to welcome the season than with a Fall landscape painting!
Pierre Daura was born in Spain and was taught at the School of Fine Arts by Pablo Picasso’s father, Jose Ruiz Blasco. He married an American art student and Virginia native, Loise Blair in the late 1920’s. Daura was obviously inspired by the landscapes of the States during a lengthy visit to Virginia with his wife in 1935. Fall at the McCorkle’s Barn is an impressionist painting of Fall on a farm in the mountains. The pieces Daura created during his time in Virginia were very successful at an exhibit in Barcelona upon his return to Europe.
Fall at the McCorkle’s Barn is currently on view in our exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum in the Urban and Rural Gallery. The goal of the pieces in this gallery is to show the importance of location and its meaning in some of the art in our permanent collection. Looking Back is a celebration of the Asheville Art Museum's permanent collection of American art of the 20th and 21st centuries. Come see this work as well as last week’s work in the same gallery and experience the changing of seasons through art!
September 6 - 12, 2010
Charles Basham, Last Day of Summer.
1986, color lithograph on paper, 15.25” x 22.25”. Gift of Jerald L. Melberg Gallery. 1986.6.61.
Warm days are slowly slipping away into Fall, but this piece, entitled Last Day of Summer, allows us to re-visit the feelings of summer-time no matter what the season.
Charles Basham is widely known for his vivid landscape paintings that reflect the harmony between color and light in nature. Basham draws most of his inspiration from life on his family’s 100 acre farm in Ohio. Last Day of Summer is currently on display in our exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum , in the Urban and Rural Gallery. This piece, in the style of realism, captures the essence of a perfect summer sunset in a country atmosphere, far from the hustle and bustle of the city.
The Museum acquired this piece as a gift from the Jerald L. Melberg Gallery. Individuals and their gifts to the Museum significantly contribute to the Museum's growth; support like this piece allow the Museum to become a stronger steward to the community of regionally and nationally significant art so that it may educate and preserve it as cultural artifacts for generations to come.
For more information about this artist, visit our permanent collection online.
August 30 - September 5, 2010
Douglas Ellingto n, Untitled Landscape with Wall.
1937, Watercolor Painting, 26” x 19.75”, Gift of Sallie Ellington Middleton. 2006.04.06.22
A few weeks ago, we featured one of Ellington’s architectural pieces. This week shows his skill in a different medium: painting.
A native of North Carolina, Douglas Ellington is well-known for his architectural pieces, including several colorful buildings in Asheville, such as the City Building. However, the artist also frequently worked with watercolor paintings. This example from 1937 is an American Impressionism influenced landscape painting with intricate details, especially in the foreground. Ellington always sought to include such detail in all his works, which carried over to his architectural commissions as well.
Untitled Landscape with Wall is currently on display in our exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum, an installation of works drawn from our permanent collection. It highlights some of the Museum's holdings in Southeastern and Western North Carolina artists, while also celebrating the generosity of collectors and community supporters who have helped to develop the collection over the past 60 years.
This piece was given to the Museum by Ellington’s niece, Sallie Ellington Middleton, whom the artist and architect greatly influenced. Come take a look at Ellington’s piece and then stop by our exhibition of nature-inspired watercolors by his niece in, Sallie Middleton: A Life in the Forest, to experience and appreciate the impressive detail of each artist.
August 23 - 29, 2010
<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--> Anni Albers, untitled from Connections Portfolio
1983, Serigraph on paper, 20.1"x15.1", Gift of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. 1997.01.03.65A.
The wife of color theorist and abstract painter Josef Albers, Anni Albers contributed significantly to the world of art with her detailed skill in textiles and weaving. The couple met as young students at the Bauhaus in Germany and was married in 1925. Anni Albers became especially interested in experimenting with various weaving materials such as silk, cotton and linen and came up with her own unique weaving style reminiscent of abstract paintings, creating geometric shapes from the threads. The couple emigrated to the United States in 1923 after being specifically chosen to create a visual arts curriculum at the newly formed Black Mountain College.
This piece is from Anni Albers’ collection called the Connections Portfolio, consisting of nine unique works in Geometric Abstraction created between 1925 and 1983. The Asheville Art Museum currently holds all nine pieces from the Connections Portfolio. Part of the collecting focus at the Asheville Art Museum is on significant pieces from Black Mountain College artists. During the Albers' 16-year tenure at the college, Anni Albers founded the weaving workshop and taught weaving and designing with a hands-on approach. Her teachings and philosophies regarding form and functionality laid the foundations for the college’s educational goals and left behind a lasting legacy.
Anni Albers’ pieces are reminiscent of the works of her husband’s in respect to form and color, which also greatly influenced his pupil, Sewell Sillman. The Asheville Art Museum currently has on view the exhibition, Sewell Sillman: Pushing Limits , which shows the ties between each artist.
For more information about this artist, visit our Permanent Collection online.
August 16 - 22, 2010
Josef Albers, Formulation: Articulation Folio II, Folder 12,
1972, serigraph on paper, 15 x 40 inches. Gift of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. 1997.01.05.65L.
Josef Albers and Sewell Sillman are intimately tied. When Sillman arrived at Black Mountain College, Albers was head of the art department. Initially interested in architecture, Sillman quickly displayed a passion for art under the tutelage of Albers. Sillman and Albers both shared a passion for color studies and were both instrumental in the formulation of Color Theory. Sillman eventually taught many of the courses that he took under Albers at Yale.
Sillman also continued to work with Albers through his print publishing firm, Ives-Sillman, founded with fellow Yale professor and graphic designer Norman Ives. Sillman used the knowledge he gained from years of color studies to successfully create color reproductions of fine art works. By focusing on screenprinting as a new medium for reproductions, these two were able to control the quality of their color prints, and they introduced the fine art portfolio book to the United States. Their first and most frequent client was Josef Albers, who entrusted them with the production of two instrumental portfolios: Interaction of Color, a book based on Albers' lessons in color theory, and Formulation: Articulation, a retrospective reworking of some of Albers' greatest artistic achievements.
This print, now on display in the Museum's exhibition Sewell Sillman: Pushing Limits, is included in Albers' deluxe double portfolio Formulation: Articulation. Sillman recalled that the purpose of this portfolio was to allow Josef Albers the opportunity to take "every seminal idea that he's ever had and to redevelop it." Sillman was a key collaborator in creating this portfolio, for he helped Albers review his past work and select compositions to reproduce as screenprints.
All of the works in the Museum's Collection from Albers' portfolio, Formulation: Articulation, are now up on the Permanent Collection Archive.
Come in to see Sewell Sillman: Pushing Limits , which traverses the breadth of Sillman's career as a student, a businessman, a teacher, a collaborator, an artist and a friend.
August 9 - 15, 2010
Josef Albers, Formulation: Articulation Folio II, Folder 18
1972, serigraph on paper, 15 x 40 inches. Gift of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 1997.01.05.65R.
Josef Albers and Sewell Sillman are intimately tied in terms of the artistic lives they led and the work they produced. When Sillman arrived at Black Mountain College, Albers was head of the art department. Initially interested in architecture, Sillman quickly displayed a passion for art under the tutelage of Albers. Sillman and Albers both shared a passion for color studies and were both instrumental in the formulation of Color Theory. Sillman eventually taught many of the courses that he took under Albers.
Sillman also continued to work with Albers through his print publishing firm, Ives-Sillman, founded with fellow Yale professor and graphic designer Norman Ives. Sillman used the knowledge he gained from years of color studies to successfully create color reproductions of fine art works. By focusing on screenprinting as a new medium for reproductions, these two were able to control the quality of their color prints, allowing them to introduce the fine art portfolio book to the United States. Their first and most frequent client was Josef Albers, who entrusted them with the production of two instrumental portfolios: Interaction of Color, a book based on Albers's lessons in color theory, and Formulation: Articulation, a retrospective reworking of some of Albers' greatest artistic achievements.
This print, now on display in the Museum's exhibition Sewell Sillman: Pushing Limits, is included in Albers' deluxe double portfolio Formulation: Articulation. Sillman recalled that the purpose of this portfolio was to allow Josef Albers the opportunity to take "every seminal idea that he's ever had and to redevelop it." Sillman was a key collaborator in creating this portfolio, for he helped Albers review his past work and select compositions to reproduce as screenprints.
 All of the works in the Museum's Collection from Albers' portfolio, Formulation: Articulation, are now up on the Permanent Collection Archive.
Come in to see Sewell Sillman: Pushing Limits , which traverses the breadth of Sillman's career as a student, a businessman, a teacher, a collaborator, an artist and a friend.
August 2 - 8, 2010
 Costantino Nivola, The Gardener,
1961, lithograph on paper, 10 x12.9 inches. Anonymous Gift. 1981.17.039.61.
Born in Italy to a poor stonecutter, Costantino Nivola, with his wife Ruth Guggenheim, finished his life as a neighbor to James Brooks, Le Corbusier, Willem de Kooning, Frederick Kiesler, Franz Kline, Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock on the East End of Long Island. Working in the style of Abstract Expressionism, Nivola was a painter, graphic designer and, most notably, a sculptor. For Nivola, art was heavily influenced by his childhood memories, his adoration for the maternal and his appreciation and understanding of nature. Art was created to be a vehicle for joy, to remind humanity of its capacity for compassion. In The Gardener, we can see fragments of these elements. Creating art for Nivola was an intuitive process. In one example, Nivola created and employed a sculptural sand casting technique he learned after watching his children play on the beach.
The Museum has a range of prints in its collection, including this work. This piece is currently on display in the exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum in the Urban and Rural gallery. Nivola often contrasted the urban and the rural with his work, commenting on the consequences of this interplay and the role of the individual within it. Visit Art in Italy, an essay about Nivola's themes, from the Nivola Museum for more on Costantino's art. Then stand in front of this work in our galleries to fully embrace Nivola's work.
For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
July 26 - August 1, 2010
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Joe Chris Robertson, View of Asheville
1963, Gouache painting on illustration board, 20 x 30 inches. Gift of Donna Nagey Robertson. 2000.23.05.23
Joe Chris Robertson was a painter and printmaker, originally from Arkansas, who made his way to North Carolina after years of education and traveling which inspired and formed the basis of his art. He was a teacher and scholar and served as chairman of the Art Department at Mars Hill College for 40 years, where he started as the institution's first art teacher. He created art from the 1940s until 1992, when he suffered a stroke and could not continue his work. Among his artistic endeavors, Robertson also built harpsichords and clocks and wrote poetry extensively for use in the classroom. Much of the artist's work attempted to illustrate the political and social surroundings of his time and worked closely with drawings and sketches as he forced them to evolve. One critic paralleled Robertson's work to that of Picasso and Matisse. Robertson remained in Mars Hill until his death in 2000.
Last week we featured a piece by Douglas Ellington, an Asheville architect and painter. This week's painting by Robertson captures a view of the town that Ellington helped build. This work is currently on display in the exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum, which takes a deep look at the Museum's Permanent Collection, and includes many local artists like Robertson!
July 19 - 25, 2010
Douglas Ellington, City Building Decorative Tile
Circa 1927, Terra Cotta, Gift of the City of Asheville, 2001.26.03.87
Douglas Ellington, known best for his keen and colorful designs in architecture, played a very big role in the life of his niece, Sallie Middleton. Sallie visited him often as a child at his home at Chunn’s Cove in Asheville. To build this magnificent home, Ellington used scrap materials from his other architectural projects from around Asheville, such as the Asheville High School, the First Baptist Church, S&W Cafeteria and the Asheville City Building, which were all built in the 1920s.
Ellington used great care to incorporate art into his architecture and introduced Asheville to the Art Deco style and the use of natural materials along with unique color schemes, like the piece shown. The colors he used were often representational, such as the scheme with the City Building. The progression of pinks and reds from bottom to top represent the gradation of color in the soil in Western North Carolina. He was also a renowned watercolorist and it is thought that Sallie gained her interest for art and nature infusion in the time she spent with Ellington at Chunn’s Cove. Along with this piece, the Museum also has a huge collection of architectural holdings with nearly 5,000 pieces that includes blueprints and sketches. We are pleased to now showcase an exhibition of Ellington’s niece, Sallie Middleton: A Life in the Forest. This piece by Ellington is a celebration of both artists' work, from architecture to nature!
For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
July 5 - 11, 2010
Jonathan Williams, Portrait of David Hockney,
1972, printed 2004, digital print from scanned negative on photographic paper, 11 x 11 inches. Gift of the Artist. 2005.28.09.99
Jonathan Williams, with his independent printing press, The Jargon Society, welcomed artists, authors, poets, and photographers to Scaly Mountain, NC, making friends in the midst of working circumstances. Williams published a wide array of material, ranging from prestigious writers and artists, many of whom were students and teachers at Black Mountain College, to literature about the rural countryside with its own humor and critique. And he took photographs of these people- his business patrons, his artistic collaborators and his close friends. It is in these photographs that one can get a true sense of Williams- as an artist, as a businessman, as a companion and a friend. The Asheville Art Museum is fortunate to have 31 of these photographs in its collection. These images range from the portraits of poet Ezra Pound to artist Ralph Eugene Meatyard, and of course, this photo of artist David Hockney. Hockney was a traveler- painting, taking photographs and teaching. He traveled across the country from one project to another, meeting people along the way, making friends and using them in his art. In a way, both Hockney and Williams used their own worlds and experiences to create original art- a process that also helps to reveal the personal in the artist.
Two weeks ago we featured Williams' photograph of mentor and friend Charles Olson, Charles Olson Writing the Maximus Poems, and last week was Hockney's lithograph, Nicholas Wilder , both of which are currently on display in the Museum's exhibition Limners to Facebook: Portraiture from the 19th to the 21st Century. Here, Williams captures David Hockney, a portrait that gives us a link to both artists, and possibly a better sense of their styles, their working relationships and their artistic goals.
Jonathan Williams and Friends, an exhibition of these photographs organized by the Museum in 2005, showcased and celebrated Jonathan Williams- his craft and his life. Williams gifted 31 of these works to the Museum, all of which can now be seen in the Museum's Permanent Collection Online. Gifts like these help the Museum to strengthen and grow. The Museum is dedicated to collecting photography, regional art of significance and works from Black Mountain College, making this collection of photographs a unique treasure.
Learn more about Jonathan Williams and see all 31 portraits in our Permanent Collection Online.
And see David Hockney's 1976 lithograph Nicholas Wilder.
June 28 - July 4, 2010
 David Hockney, Nicholas Wilder
1976, lithograph on paper, 21.5 x 23.75 inches. Gift of Ray Griffin and Thom Robinson. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2006.19.01.61
David Hockney is one of the most important portraitists of his era, renowned for depictions of family, friends and people he met in his extensive travels. A character of his own, Hockney traveled across the country, teaching at prestigious schools, hosting sell out exhibitions and then returning to the road to explore the countryside, meet new people and document it all with his art. On his first trip to Los Angeles in 1969, Hockney met the art dealer Nicholas Wilder, the subject of this work. Seven years later, Hockney drove back to LA, where he made a series of large, highly detailed academic lithographs entitled Friends. Nicholas Wilder is one of these works. Hockney used these lithographs to improve as an artist, or, as he says, "to train the eye"; Joe McDonald and Billy Wilder were also among his subjects.
David Hockney is not only an artist working in the Pop Art style, experimenting with different art mediums and producing a range of work, but he is also a character himself, and his art reflects the explorative life that he led and the unique and instrumental people he met along the way. His work not only documents his life, but it also serves to document an era in American history, an adventurous lifestyle reflective of the times, and thus his work serves as the ultimate portrait of his own colorful character.
This work is currently located in the Museum's exhibition Limners to Facebook: Portraiture from the 19th to the 21st Century , which, as Hockney did, explores the portrait as evidence of life, as documentation of experience, as a reflection of surrounding company and as a record of the present moment in our lives. And of course, the evolution of these moments tells the story of portraiture itself. Come see it!
And don't miss next week's work, where Hockney is on the other side of the camera.
For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
June 21 - 27, 2010
 Jonathan Williams, Charles Olson Writing the Maximus Poems,
1951, digital print from scanned negative on photographic paper, 15 x 15 inches. Gift of the Artist. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2005.28.01.99.
Jonathan Williams was a poet, essayist, photographer, publisher and graphic artist; he started an independent printing press in Scaly Mountain, NC, The Jargon Society, where he lived until his death in 2008. Williams was a champion of Outsider Artists and published many prestigious poets, writers, photographers and artists, many of whom were students and teachers at Black Mountain College. Mixing opportunity and talent, he also took photographs of the many people who crossed his path, 31 of which the Asheville Art Museum has in its collection. These images range from the portraits of poets Ezra Pound and Alan Ginsberg to artists David Hockney and Ralph Eugene Meatyard, and of course, Williams' own teacher during his short stay at Black Mountain College, the poet Charles Olson.
This photograph, Charles Olson Writing the Maximus Poems, is currently in the Museum's exhibition Limners to Facebook: Portraiture from the 19th to the 21st Century, which, as Williams did, explores the evolution of portraiture over time. Compare this image with Williams' photograph, Portrait of Charles Olson, shot in 1966- 15 years later- and also in our collection.
In 2005, the Museum held an exhibition of these photographs titled Jonathan Williams and Friends and all 31 of them can now be seen in the Museum's Permanent Collection Online. Jonathan Williams gifted these works to the Museum, helping to strengthen and grow the Museum's permanent collection. Working artists who donate their works to the Museum are a major force in building the permanent collection, and the Museum is incredibly grateful for their support. The Museum is dedicated to collecting photography, regional art of significance and works from Black Mountain College, making this collection of photographs a unique treasure.
Learn more about Jonathan Williams and see all 31 portraits in our Permanent Collection Online!
June 14 - 20, 2010
 Mark Sluder, Doc Watson,
1987, Photograph, black and white silver gelatin print, 10 x 15.75 inches. Gift of Jerald L. Melberg Gallery, Inc. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 1992.03.07.91.
Currently, the Museum has two photographs of Doc Watson up in its galleries. This one, by Mark Sluder, is in the exhibition on portraiture, Limners to Facebook: Portraiture from the 19th to the 21st Century. It is also in the Museum's Permanent Collection, gifted by the Jerald L. Melberg Gallery. Located in Charlotte, the gallery's founder, Jerald Melberg, previously served as curator at the Mint Museum of Art.
Limners to Facebook explores the desire to capture ‘a sense of self' through portraiture and looks at this art form over time to see its continued importance in contemporary American art and popular culture. The exhibition includes formal portraits, self-portraits, portraits of animals and portraits of friends, models and celebrities.
Interestingly, the Museum has another photograph of Doc Watson up in the galleries. Taken by regional photographer Tim Barnwell, it is in the exhibition Hands in Harmony: Traditional Crafts and Music in Appalachia, Photographs by Tim Barnwell, a photographic exploration of the makers of Appalachian folk music and traditional handcrafts.
Come in to see these two photographs of the same musician- dueling Doc Watson portraits. How do they compare?
For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
June 7 - 13, 2010
Naomi Boretz, Mountain Streams (North Carolina),
circa 1970, Ink drawing on paper, 16 x 21 inches. Gift of the Artist in memory of the Artist's father, Joseph Messinger. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 1981.18.41.
Naomi Boretz is a widely acclaimed artist who has exhibited her work throughout the country and has received various prestigious awards. Although she works in many different mediums, this drawing in the collection, Mountain Streams, was inspired by a road trip Boretz made through North Carolina. It is based on her recollections of the countryside during her trip.
Continuing our discussion of artist donated works to the collection, this piece was given to the Museum by Boretz. The Museum is incredibly grateful to all of its supporters, including working artists who donate their works to the Museum, for they are a major force in the growth of the Museum's permanent collection.
This piece is currently located in our second floor galleries as part of the exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum, an installation of works drawn from the permanent collection. It highlights some of the Museum's holdings in Southeastern and Western North Carolina artists, while also celebrating the generosity of collectors and community supporters who have helped to develop the collection over the past 60 years. This is one you need to see in person!
For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
May 31 - June 6, 2010
Steven Seinberg, Waiting,
2008, oil and graphite on canvas, 58.25 x 46 inches. Gift of the Artist. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2009.19.20.
Steven Seinberg works out of a studio in downtown Asheville. Although he exhibits and sells work in major cities across the nation, he is inspired by his surroundings, the Western North Carolina Mountains and the natural settings of the area. He works in the style of Abstraction and is often labeled as "atmospheric abstraction". Paintings combine oil paint and graphite, and are often layered with words, phrases or poems and utilize earth tones and monochromatic hues.
This work was given to the Museum by Seinberg. It is currently on display in the Museum's Permanent Collection galleries in the exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum in the Geometric and Organic gallery. Seinberg not only references organic elements in his work, but he also uses organic materials to create these works. Come in to the Museum to see this work juxtaposed against the geometric.
Looking Back highlights some of the Museum's holdings in Southeastern and Western North Carolina artists, while also celebrating the generosity of collectors and community supporters who have helped to develop the collection over the past 60 years. Working artists who donate their works to the Museum are a major force in building the permanent collection, and the Museum is incredibly grateful for their support.
For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
OR
Visit the Asheville Art Museum's blog to read about the Museum Docents' trip to Seinberg's studio.
May 24 - 30, 2010
Kenn Kotara, Printemp
1997, oil on canvas, 69 x 45 inches. Gift of the Artist. 2000.02.21.
Kenn Kotara creates landscape studies from impromptu sketches he makes as he drives or bicycles around the countryside. His still lifes and landscapes focus more and more on the abstract and geometrical aspects of the landscape.
This painting was given to the Asheville Art Museum by the artist. It is currently located in our second floor galleries as part of the exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum , an installation of works drawn from the permanent collection. It highlights some of the Museum's holdings in Southeastern and Western North Carolina artists, while also celebrating the generosity of collectors and community supporters who have helped to develop the collection over the past 60 years. Working artists who donate their works to the Museum are a major force in building the permanent collection, and the Museum is incredibly grateful for their support.
The exhibition is split into four sections, placing this work in the Urban and Rural gallery, which uses the juxtaposition of urban and rural to explore how our sense of place is inextricably tied to our sense of self. Located next to traditional landscapes and other geometric, abstract works, the viewer can get more of a sense of Kotara's inspiration for this work, in the countryside, during a bike ride.
For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
May 17 - 23, 2010
Minnie Adkins, Possum and Babies,
2005, carved and painted wood, 9.5 x 40 x 4.6 inches, 2009 Art Nouveaux Purchase, 2010.01.04.32
Minnie Adkins is a carver; she carves a variety of animals out of wood - bears, possums, tigers and red foxes. With her first husband Garland, the couple also became renowned as generous supporters of their neighbors, who aspired to become artists, and even established an annual event to introduce and sell their works. This event, "A Day in the Country," continues today and has become a celebrated pilgrimage destination for both collectors and budding artists.
Minnie Adkins began carving as a result of craft tradition; she falls squarely in the middle of both Folk and Outsider art. Outsider artists are not interested in the audience for the art or its long-lasting appeal. Folk artists, on the other hand, remain within the mainstream of the art world, even if they fail to practice its style. Generally they accept its subjects and techniques; their creations are within the boundaries of a community and a culture.
Outsider art has been established as a collecting focal point for the Museum. To balance Outsider art, the Museum is also building a solid Folk art collection that helps to complement it. Minnie Adkins' work is more than able to help both collections. This piece was recently purchased by the Museum's Collecting group, Art Nouveaux, in 2009. The Art Nouveaux gather to learn about collecting and art, while also purchasing works for the Museum's collection.
A smaller version of this possum was in the recent exhibition Tradition/Innovation: American Masterpieces of Southern Craft & Traditional Art, a celebration of the South's finest craftspeople, and was on view at the Museum through the summer of 2009. A photograph by Tim Barnwell of Adkins and her family is currently on display in the Museum's newest exhibition Hands in Harmony: Traditional Crafts and Music in Appalachia, Photographs by Tim Barnwell, in the Museum's Community Gallery.
Want to know MORE? Hop over to the Museum's Blog to read about Barnwell's interview with Minnie Adkins as part of the exhibition. OR listen to Barnwell talk about his trip to photograph the family on our Podcast.
For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
May 10 - 16, 2010
Tim Barnwell, Rowena Bradley Making Double Weave Rivercane Baskets,
1991, black and white silver gelatin print, 14 x 11 inches. 2009 Art Nouveaux Purchase. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2010.01.02.91.
Tim Barnwell is well-known in the region for his photographs of Western North Carolina's rich and unique cultural heritage. Through his professional and striking photographs, he has documented some of this area's strong characters, fascinating crafts and unprecedented artistic and musical history. His work both reflects great artistic talent and documents the talent of others. It is greatly understood that the Western North Carolina area has a cultural heritage uniquely it's own, and Tim Barnwell effectively showcases this heritage to the world through his incredible talent as a photographer.
In the Holden Community Gallery, the Museum has organized a new exhibition on Tim Barnwell, Hands in Harmony: Traditional Crafts and Music in Appalachia, Photographs by Tim Barnwell; it is a photographic exploration of the makers of Appalachian folk music and traditional handcrafts. This photo, Rowena Bradley Making Double Weave Rivercane Baskets, is part of the show. It was purchased last year by the Museum's collecting group, Art Nouveaux, in preparation for this show. Rowena Bradley was a Cherokee basket weaver; at one point she was one of only a handful of double weave rivercane weavers, and during her lifetime, she helped to revive interest in Cherokee basketry, effectively insuring that knowledge of this craft would live on in future generations. Reflective of many of the Museum's goals in collecting Cherokee art and contemporary photographs and cataloging regional heritage, the Museum's Permanent Collection contains three Barnwell photographs and two Rowena Bradley baskets. Last week's Work of the Week discussed Bradley's Double Weave Lidded Basket in the collection.
THIS FRIDAY, MAY 14th is the opening for the exhibition of Tim Barnwell's photographs at the Museum. Come discuss the work with him!
For more information on Tim Barnwell and his photograph Rowena Bradley Making Double Weave Rivercane Baskets, visit it in our Permanent Collection online!
For more information on Rowena Bradley and her basket Double Weave Lidded Basket, visit it here in our Permanent Collection online!
May 3 - 9, 2010
Rowena Bradley, Double Weave Lidded Basket,
No date, double woven river cane with walnut and blood root dyes, 6.75 x 6 x 6 inches. 2004 Collectors' Circle Acquisition. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2005.03.09.58.
At one point, Rowena Bradley was one of only a handful of double weave rivercane weavers. She learned by watching her mother weave, a third generation Cherokee basket weaver. Eventually, she became part of the Cherokee craft revitalization which helped boost Cherokee economy and also kept the traditions of Cherokee craft alive for future generations. Bradley's father was Henry Bradley, Principal Chief of the Eastern Band, and she grew up on lands owned by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indian.
Double weave baskets were good storage containers because they were strong and often water repellant. A double weave basket is really two baskets, one inside the other, woven together at the rim. Beginning at the base of the inside basket, the weaver works upward to the rim and then down along the outside towards the base, often using two designs on the inside and the outside. Bradley learned patterns and designs from her mother, but she also came up with some of her own. To make the baskets, the rivercane is collected, split into quarters, peeled, soaked in water and then dyed before beginning to weave. Bradley used materials common to traditional Cherokee rivercane basketry, including naturally found dyes from native roots and bark, including those from butternut, black walnut, bloodroot and yellow root.
This basket was purchased for the Museum by the Collectors' Circle after it was in the Museum's exhibition Transformations: Cherokee Baskets in the Twentieth Century, which examined Cherokee basket making over the past century, and how the materials and styles have evolved during this time period. A photograph of Rowena Bradley taken by photographer Tim Barnwell will be on display starting May 14th in the Museum's new exhibition Hands in Harmony: Traditional Crafts and Music in Appalachia, Photographs by Tim Barnwell. Look for it next week, here at Work of the Week!
For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
April 26 - May 2, 2010
Robert Yarber, The Corruption of Ecstasy,
1989, color lithograph, 30 x 44 inches. Museum purchase with funds provided by Ray Griffin and Thom Robinson. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2008.40.61.
Robert Yarber is the Distinguished Professor of Art at Pennsylvania State University. He is best known for his images of flying or falling figures seen above neon-lit cityscapes viewed at night. The main ideas of Yarber's work revolve around "combining antiquity with modernism. His paintings have a dream-like surreal atmosphere that is balanced against the anxieties of late 20th, early 21st century culture. This work contains three figures- one crying and hiding his face, one looking out with binoculars and one flying in the air- all three of which are very different in the way they interact with the world. The fourth figure- the viewer- must choose which one to relate to.
This work is on display in the Museum's exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum, in the Seen and Unseen Gallery. The Museum purchased it with funds provided by Ray Griffin and Thom Robinson, after it was presented to the Museum's collecting group Art Nouveaux in 2008. The Art Nouveaux is a group for those new to collecting who want to learn more about collecting art, art connoisseurship and more. One of the Museum's collecting focuses is prints and this lithograph makes an excellent edition to the collection.
April 19 - 25, 2010
 Martha Armstrong, Fall Construction,
1997, oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches, Gift of Alan W. Armstrong in Memory of Marion Armstrong Hearn. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 1998.23.21.
"Painting the landscape, for me, is watching the light. Painting still lifes in the long slanting light of winter is a way to keep track of myself and the days as they move toward spring"- Martha Armstrong
Martha Armstrong is a landscape painter with a vigorous and forceful approach. Painted in the style of Neo-Expressionism, Armstrong uses slashing brushstrokes and strong color contrasts in her landscapes in order to display spontaneous emotion through her work. As Jeffrey Carr says, she paints your perception of objects; not what is actually there, but what you actually see.
This painting, Fall Construction, is positioned right next to, and in juxtaposition with, last week's Work of the Week, Louis Finkelstein's Park Tennis, in the Museum's Permanent Collection exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum, in the Urban and Rural gallery. Similar in size, these two paintings convey a familiarity that can occur between the urban and rural landscapes and also between spring and autumn. Looking Back is a celebration of the Asheville Art Museum's permanent collection of American art of the 20th and 21st centuries; come see these two paintings side by side.
For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
April 12 - 18, 2010
Louis Finkelstein, Park Tennis,
1961, oil painting on canvas, 50 x 50 inches. Gift of the Artist, Asheville Art Museum Collection. 1998.08.21.
Can you feel the end of winter and the beginning of spring? Help me to ring in the warm weather with a little Park Tennis by Louis Finkelstein. Finkelstein was a painter, an art critic, a prolific teacher, a firm advocate for the arts and a public presence. He was in the Art Student's League of New York, the US Air Force during World War II and on numerous boards, planning committees and arts councils. This work, Park Tennis, was painted in the style of New Realism, a reaction against Abstract Expressionism that used flattened space, large scale and simplified colors to convey a sense of the realistic, in contrast to the abstract. Rumor has it that in the 1960s Finkelstein coined the phrase "abstract impressionism”, an abstract movement where small brushstrokes were used to build large scale works.
This painting is currently on display in the Museum’s exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum, in the Museum’s permanent collection gallery Urban and Rural. Looking Back is a celebration of the Asheville Art Museum's collection of American art of the 20th and 21st centuries and highlights some of the Museum's holdings in Southeastern and Western North Carolina artists. The Permanent Collection steers the Museum’s other functions, making it an instrumental part of the Museum’s identity and purpose as a stewardship of art to the public.
Come in to see this incredible work, and then go outside and play some tennis. Good luck...
April 5 - 11, 2010
 Stone Roberts, Luke and Flowers,
2009, Photogravure on paper, 22.75 x 20.25 inches. Gift of Camille Stone Roberts. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2010.02.60.
Stone Roberts was born in Asheville. His richly detailed paintings pay homage to the old masters but are clearly grounded in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, reflecting a keen eye for detail and a humorous and sly wit.
The dog in this work, Luke, was Roberts' dog and would often accompany him to the studio. Luke also appears in a number of Roberts other works. This work reflects a keen sense of realism, an art style which emphasized the depiction of things as they appear or occur, without embellishment or interpretation. Looking at this work, one can only imagine Roberts turning his head in the studio to see his dog licking from a bowl and knocking things off the table.
Although Luke and Flowers is included in the Museum's exhibition Limners to Facebook: Portraiture from the 19th to the 21st Century , it is currently in the Museum's community gallery by the elevators, as an introduction to the show. As a part of this gallery, it is free to see at the Museum, so come into the Museum and see it in person.
March 29 - April 4, 2010
Pinky Bass, Barbed Wire (from Limens and Sublimens),
1994, Photograph, Black and White Silver Gelatin Print, 27.88 x 36 inches. Museum Purchase with funds provided by Ray Griffin in honor of the 2007 Art Nouveaux and Thom Robinson. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2007.19.91.
Pinky Bass is best known as a pinhole photographer although she also works in other media forms. Her work conveys universal themes of life, death and transformation, and she describes herself as a feminist, spiritualist and artist.
A pinhole camera is a light-tight box with a tiny hole in one end and film or photographic paper in the other. There is no lens in a pinhole camera; it is replaced by a tiny hole, and when light passes through the hole, an image is formed. Pinhole cameras have no focal length but they have an infinite depth of field. There are a wide variety of pinhole cameras; they can be made with one or multiple pin holes, they can be made out of shells, cans or cereal boxes and they can be very large or very small. Bass' pinhole photograph, Barbed Wire (from Limens and Sublimens), was made from a bible with two points of view.
This work was purchased during the Museum's first annual purchase party for the collecting group Art Nouveaux by Ray Griffin in honor of the 2007 Art Nouveaux and Thom Robinson. Art Nouveaux is a group for those new to collecting who want to learn more about collecting art, art connoisseurship and more. The Museum is dedicated to collecting a variety of photographs as part of its long term collecting strategy and this work is a testament to that diversity. Currently, the piece is in the Museum's exhibition Limners to Facebook: Portraiture from the 19th to the 21st Century.
March 22 - 28, 2010
O. Winston Link, Living Room on the Tracks, (Lithia, Virginia),
1955 (printed by the artist in 1997), Photograph, black and white silver gelatin print, 15.38 x 19.38 inches. Museum Purchase with funds provided by 2005 Collectors' Circle members Paul and Cherry Lentz Saenger. 2005.17.91
Link developed a love for trains at the age of four when he was given his first Lionel train set. As a youth, he became interested in photography. In the late 1930s, he studied civil engineering. Combining his training as an engineer with his youthful interest in photography, he became a successful commercial photographer and artist.
During World War II, Link performed secret war research for the United States Government, and, stationed adjacent to The Long Island Railroad, his earlier interest in steam locomotives was rekindled.
Link began photographing the Norfolk and Western Railroad in the mid-1950s. Although he was not hired by the N&W, he gained their permission to realize a decade-old dream of photographing steam trains at night using a complex system of synchronized flash units. In his carefully staged images, he captured both the last steam powered trains in the United States and some of the people who maintained and lived near them; these photographs became some to the most dramatic images of trains in the American landscape. The photographs that Link made in Western Virginia and Northwest North Carolina are considered by many to be some of the most technically and aesthetically sophisticated images of the 20th century.
This photograph, Living Room on the Tracks, (Lithia, Virginia), is considered to be among Link's strongest images and provides multiple avenues for interpretation. It is currently on display in the Museum's exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum, which celebrates the Asheville Art Museum's permanent collection. The Museum is dedicated to collecting important photographic pieces from artists in the region and nationwide.
March 15 - 21, 2010
 Oscar Bailey, Ed Ruscha, 10 Times, Tampa, FL,
1970, Photograph, Black and White Silver Gelatin Print, 6.25 x 43.5 inches. Museum Purchase with funds provided by 2007 Collectors' Circle member Frances Myers in memory of Nat. C. Myers. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2007.31.91.
Oscar Bailey has worked in a variety of photographic styles, but his most inventive work was done with a panoramic camera made in 1915, the Cirkut camera. These cameras were made between 1904 and 1943 to photograph large groups of people and vast landscapes. The camera is driven by a complex, windup mechanism that rotates one direction while the film travels the other way at the same speed, producing a picture about five feet long that covers just over 360 degrees. This photograph, Ed Ruscha, 10 Times, Tampa, FL, was taken with a Cirkut panoramic camera and it shows 10 views of the American Pop Artist Ed Ruscha holding 10 different books of his work.
Bailey is a founding member of the Society for Photographic Education, and he started a photographic program at the University of South in Tampa, FL in 1969, where he taught until he retired to Yancey County, here in Western North Carolina.
This celebrity portrait is currently on display in the Museum's newest exhibition Limners to Facebook: Portraiture from the 19th to the 21st Century, which explores the history of Portraiture (it is also part of our Website's front page banner). The Museum is dedicated to collecting contemporary photography as part of its long term collecting strategies, and this unique panoramic work reflects the Museum's varied photographic collection.
March 8 - 14, 2010
(photo no longer available) William Wegman, Red Detachment,
2006, Polaroid photograph, 24.25 x 20.75 inches. 2007 Collectors' Circle Purchase. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2007.33.02.96
William Wegman is best known as an art photographer noted for compositions of his Weimaraner dogs in various costumes, poses and scenarios. Wegman received international attention for his images of his first Weimaraner dog, Man Ray. Man Ray became so popular that the Village Voice named the dog "Man of the Year" in 1982.
This work is currently in the Museum's newest exhibition Limners to Facebook: Portraiture from the 19th to the 21st Century , which includes formal portraits, self-portraits, portraits of animals and portraits of friends, models and celebrities. In this case, Wegman's photo captures both a portrait of an animal and a celebrity.
In creating these photographs Wegman balances humor with strong formal composition. Interestingly, Wegman says that it is often the technical problems that prove more challenging than working with the dogs.
The Museum is dedicated to collecting contemporary photography, and in this work, Wegman uses a specific way of photographing his subject. In 1978, Wegman was invited to use the newly developed Polaroid 20 x 24 inch camera. This camera produces large format "contact" prints renowned for their color and detail, but only produces one unique print at a time. Red Detachment is an example of his continued work with the Polaroid 20 x 24 camera.
March 1 - 7, 2010
Annie Leibovitz, Laurie Anderson YMCA New York City,
1983, Cibachrome photograph, 10.38 x10.38 inches. Gift of R.K. Benites. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2005.12.03.94.
Annie Leibovitz is a photographer whose work has included magazine, fashion and advertising photography. She is best known for her portraits of celebrities, who range from political figures to musicians and athletes. From 1970 to 1983, she was the chief photographer for the magazine Rolling Stones, and in the early 1990's she founded the Annie Leibovitz Studio in New York City. As a portrait photographer, Leibovitz emphasizes some aspect of each subject's public persona. Using the whole of the subject's body, typically captured in the midst of physical action, Leibovitz achieves her effects with flair--often outrageous--setting her work apart from that of other portrait artists.
This portrait of Laurie Anderson is currently in the Museum's newest exhibition Limners to Facebook: Portraiture from the 19th to the 21st Century, which includes formal portraits, self-portraits, portraits of animals and portraits of friends, models and celebrities. This celebrity portrait is of Laurie Anderson, a performance artist and musician. Anderson autographed the mat framing this work upon visiting the Museum in 2008 in conjunction with the Museum's exhibition Time is of the Essence. One of the Museum's collecting focuses is on photography and we are delighted to have a photograph by this important contemporary art photographer in our collection. Come in to the Museum to see what Anderson wrote on the portrait Leibovitz took of her!
February 22 - 28, 2010
Pierre Daura, Chickens,
circa 1963, watercolor and tempera painting on paper, 15.25 x 12.13 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection, Gift of Martha R. Daura, 1998.17.08.22
Pedro Francisco Daura y Garcia was born and raised in Spain. He was formally educated at the School of Fine Arts where his teachers included Pablo Picasso's father, Jose Ruiz Blasco. At the age of fourteen, he sold work in his first exhibition. While working on a mural in Normady in 1923, Daura fell and permanently damaged his left hand, rendering it useless for the remainder of his life, yet he still continued to paint and sculpt.
In the 1920's, Daura met and married an American art student, Louise Blair, who was from Virginia. They had a daughter, Martha. After traveling to Virginia around 1935 to visit his wife's relatives, his paintings of Virginian landscapes were well received upon his return. Soon after, he joined the Republican army in Spain as a volunteer against the forces of Franco, was wounded in battle and returned to France to recuperate. After refusing to return to Spain after the war, both he and Martha lost their Spanish citizenship and the family was forced to move to France. In 1939, they traveled back to Virginia but were unable to return to France because of WWII. After gaining American citizenship, the family moved to a village at the foot of the Allegheny Mountains in Virginia where Daura and Louise lived until their deaths.
Daura's Chickens was painted around 1963, near the end of his life, while living in Virginia. It is painted in the American Scene-Rural style, where artists depicted scenes of typical American life and landscapes, reflecting the country's nationalism and isolationism in the face of the social changes between the wars. Daura's overall style can be characterized as "romantic realism, combined with a gentle expressionism and imaginative abstraction."
This watercolor is on display in the Museum's exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum , in the Urban and Rural Gallery. Daura's daughter Martha donated this work to the Museum. Come into the Museum to see this vibrant work in person to welcome the Spring and say farewell to Winter!
February 15 - 21, 2010
 Ati Gropius Johansen, Sample for Marzipan Annie,
circa 1957, ink and watercolor on rice paper, 14.13 x 9.88 inches, Black Mountain College Collection, Gift of the Artist, 2008.46.16.41
Beate ‘Ati' Gropius Johansen is the daughter of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius. She is a book illustrator and designer; primarily focusing on graphics in the form of children's book illustrations, her work can be seen in over 40 published books.
Two works by Johansen, including this one, are now on display as part of the Museum's new exhibition, Nouns: Children's Book Artists Look at People, Places and Things, which examines original book illustrations from artists who are committed to the genre of children's books. Johansen painted these as samples to give to prospective publishers in order to gain employment. During her subsequent career, she specialized in children's book illustrations, resulting in over 40 books published under the name Ati Forberg.
From the summer of 1943 to the summer of 1946, Johansen attended Black Mountain College, studying mostly under Josef Albers. After leaving BMC, Ati completed her graduate work at the Chicago Institute of Design. The Museum is dedicated to collecting work by artists who studied at Black Mountain College as part of its long term collecting strategy. Although it lasted only 24 years, from 1933-57, and enrolled fewer than 1200 students, Black Mountain College launched a remarkable number of the artists.
Come to the Museum to see this exciting new exhibition on Children's Book Artists, or join us for one of the many programs scheduled in conjunction with this show. Bring your children and snuggle up with a book in the gallery for your own story time session; books and chairs provided!
For more information on this work and artist, or to see the other image in the show by Ati Gropius Johansen, visit our Permanent Collection online!
February 8 - 14, 2010
  Sulton Rogers, Untitled Pregnant Woman in Red Dress,
not dated, carved and painted wood, 13 x 5 x 6.5 inches, Asheville Art Museum Collection, Museum Purchase, 2006.11.01.32
Sulton Rogers, Untitled Man with Pink Shirt and Green Pants,
not dated, carved and painted wood, 12.5 x 4 x 6 inches, Asheville Art Museum Collection, Museum Purchase, 2006.11.02.32
In our last week on sculpture, these two figures needed to be paired together to give you a taste of the uniqueness of Sulton Rogers. An Outsider Artist, Sulton Rogers was taught wood carving by his father when he was 13. His first name is often misspelled as "Sultan." Rogers' woodcarvings are best described as fanciful, grotesque and occasionally erotic.
Outsider artists generally lack any formal training and borrow heavily from styles throughout the history of art. Their works can be childlike and spontaneous in appearance. They also typically create detailed flat spaces using bright colors. Outsider Art and Sculpture are collecting focal points for the Museum. These sculptures are currently on display in the Museum's exhibition Looking Forward: New Works and New Directions for the Permanent Collection, which is in its LAST week at the Asheville Art Museum. Come in this week to see these works!
For more information on this artist and these works, Untitled Pregnant Woman in Red Dress and Untitled Man with Pink Shirt and Green Pants , visit our Permanent Collection online!
February 1 - 7, 2010
 Virgil Ledford, Bear,
circa 2008, walnut wood, 8.75 x 11 x 4.25 inches, Asheville Art Museum Collection. Museum purchase with funds provided by 2009 Collectors' Circle members Russell and Ladene Newton.
As a child, Virgil Ledford listened to stories about his great-grandfather Murphy, who "could carve anything he wanted." Ledford grew up in Western North Carolina and attended Cherokee High School, where he studied woodcarving with Amanda Crowe. He credits her with teaching him how to create his own unique designs while basing them in the culture of his people.
Ledford is one of the best-known of the living Cherokee carvers, and he has made a living as a woodcarver for many years. In Virgil's own words, "I didn't know it was going to be my livelihood. It's a God given talent. I just made it work for me."
Last year, Virgil Ledford was in two exhibitions at the Asheville Art Museum, Cherokee Carvers: Tradition Renewed, organized by the Museum and Tradition/Innovation: American Masterpieces of Southern Craft and Traditional Art, organized by the Southern Arts Federation. This carving is a fine example of Ledford's work, using simple forms to express the character and essence of the bear.
The art of the Cherokee is one of the areas identified in the Museum's collections growth plan, outlining areas the Museum is collecting in depth. It also continues our discussion of sculptural pieces in the Museum's permanent collection; look at the last few weeks for a more on sculpture.
This piece was recently purchased by the 2009 Collectors' Circle members Russell and Ladene Newton during the annual Collectors' Circle Selection Dinner. The Museum's Collector's Circle is a group art lovers who meet regularly to learn about personal art collecting and to support the Museum's permanent collection through the annual purchase of works of art. Contact us to learn more about this prestigious group!
January 25 - 31, 2010
Clyde Jones, untitled critter,
1991, wood, 12.75 x 37.25 x 13 inches, Gift of Randy Siegel, Asheville Art Museum Collection, 2009.14.01.38
For almost thirty years, Clyde Jones has been making creatures out of wood with chainsaws, decorating them with found objects. A North Carolina native, Clyde lives and works in Bynum, NC, south of Carrboro and Chapel Hill. He was born in 1938 or 39, he thinks, but it does not really concern him. His property is littered with his works, hundreds of whimsical creatures that he does not like to sell but loves to share with children, teaching them to make their own. Clyde and his critters have traveled across the nation and throughout the world, but as a true Outsider Artist, Clyde does not concern himself with the conventional art world and so his craft is not influenced by recognition within it.
Outsider Art has been established as a collecting focal point for the Museum and is discussed in the Museum's Collection Growth Plan. Outsider art is originally created for the artist and not an institution, society or market. The value is determined by the creator, not the observer. Outsider art has been traditionally understood as work that falls outside mainstream culture usually because of one or more factors such as class, race, mental handicap or imprisonment.
This sculpture, untitled critter, is currently in the Museum's exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum and was recently installed as part of the exhibition's rotation early this month. Come see it before journeying out to see Clyde's forest of creatures.
January 18- 24, 2010
Dorothy Gillespie, Triangled Celebration,
1985, aluminum, 144 x 60 x 60 inches, Gift of Nationwide Life Insurance Company, Asheville Art Museum Collection, 1991.17.33
Dorothy Gillespie's sculpture is a permanent fixture in the Asheville Art Museum's foyer, hanging above the library frieze and hovering over the heads of guests in the Holden Community gallery. Composed of three separate pieces, Gillespie redesigned this sculpture to fit in its current location. At its previous location, in Chapel Hill, two of the units were connected together so there were two segments hanging down, one long and one short. Today, three large pieces hang down from the ceiling as you walk in to the Asheville Art Museum. Don't forget to look up!
Dorothy Gillespie was born in 1920 in Virginia, and at the age of 90 years old, she is still working in New York City. She is best known for her distinctive, brightly colored metal abstractions and her permanent sculptures. Working in the style of Pattern and Decoration, Gillespie's use of bright colors invoke the decorative aspects found in many craft pieces at the Museum. Pattern and Decoration, primarily based in the United States, was a reaction against Minimalism; artists working in this style were often influenced by Feminist Art and created works that utilized domestic materials or made reference to the domestic environment.
One of the Asheville Art Museum's collecting focuses is on large sculptural pieces. This work starts our discussion on sculpture found at the Museum.
Visit us to see this amazing work of art, visible from many different vantage points within the Museum.
For more information about this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
January 11- 17, 2010
 Helen West Heller, Isometric Architect,
1941, woodcut, 7.87 x 5.75 inches. Gift of Thelma Lowenstein, Asheville Art Museum Collection, 1993.08.01.65
Helen West Heller (1885-1955), also known as Helen Barnhart, was a participant in the WPA Federal Art Project. In 1949 she won the First Purchase Prize from the Library of Congress, and she was the author of "Migratory Urge," a text cut in wood. Her interest in nature motifs and love of wood is evident in her woodcuts and paintings. In Helen West Heller's own words, "I build up contrasts and similitudes of ideas as well as opposed areas, forms, tonalities, and colors."
Isometric Architect was placed in the Museum's exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum as part of the Museum's rotation of works on paper last week. This exhibition on the Museum's permanent collection has been in the gallery for over six months. Because of concerns about light exposure and other factors, the Museum rotates works on paper after a period of time so these pieces can ‘rest'. Even if you have already seen it, come in to see all of the new works in this exhibition and notice the continued comparisons and contrasts made by the Curators in each of the four galleries: Alone and Together, Geometric and Organic, Seen and Unseen, Urban and Rural.
This piece is part of the American Scene-Urban movement that came to prominence in the 1930-50's. These artists sought to capture the plight of the individual in the urban arena. Their works often depicted the loneliness of the city and were in contrast to the more conservative American Scene-Rural artists of this time.
January 4 - 10, 2010
Lorna Blaine Halper, Spiral Man,
not dated, cast bronze, 32.88 x 12.33 inches, Gift of the Artist, Asheville Art Museum Black Mountain College Collection, 2008.03.12.33
The spiral motif is important throughout Lorna Blaine Halper's career. The form is evident in early works like At the Opera (1948), eventually transforming this visual form into a "spiral guy" who became a "lifelong companion" enabling her to do "zillions of things." According to Halper, "I can fly to the moon with the spiral guy."
This motif was explored by Halper at Black Mountain and led her into new materials, like the cast bronze work, Spiral Man, on view in Lorna Blaine Halper: The Space Between. Lorna Blaine Halper: The Space Between is a solo exhibition currently on display at the Asheville Art Museum in the Holden Community Gallery. Admission to this gallery is free; an exhibition publication is available for purchase in the Museum Shop.
Lorna Blaine Halper attended Black Mountain College from 1945 to 1948 where she studied with Josef Albers, Fannie Hillsmith, Robert Motherwell and Ilya Bolotowsky. She married a former student and member of the faculty, Tasker Howard, and they moved to New York. After Tasker's early death, she remarried novelist and critic Albert Halper.
As part of its collecting focus, the Asheville Art Museum is dedicated to collecting work by Black Mountain College (BMC) artists. BMC, located just outside of Asheville, was a unique school that used an interdisciplinary and experimental approach to arts education. Although it lasted only 24 years, from 1933-57, and enrolled fewer than 1200 students, BMC launched a remarkable number of the artists. Lorna Blaine Halper has gifted all of the works of art to the Asheville Art Museum for her solo show. Her gift of such a sizeable body of work representing the full range of her artistic career enables visitors to experience a BMC artist in depth. It also allows the Museum to continue to preserve and education the public on this unique institution for generations to come.
According to Cole Hendrix, Assistant Curator and curator of the show Lorna Blaine Halper: The Space Between , "for me, the Spiral Man seems to a force of liberation for Halper. I imagine much of the work in the show to be about line and it's potential. In earlier works, line seems contained, bound as it were. Then it begins to move and bend and challenge the boundaries of the picture plane and our sense of space. When Lorna takes that early spiral form (At the Opera) and transforms it into a figure, she gives line life and in a symbolic way, that line becomes a (super) human force."
For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
December 28, 2009 - January 3, 2010
 Susan Weil and José Betancourt, Leaf Hands,
2007, blueprint, 78 x 71 inches. Asheville Art Museum, Black Mountain College Collection. 2009 Collectors Circle Purchase.
Throughout her career, Susan Weil has continually pushed the limits of painting. Her work defies traditional notions of the medium instead of hovering over the line between painting and sculpture. Since her career began in the 1940's, Weil has continuously reinvented her style but her work has always contained common threads exploring questions of space, time and movement.
In Leaf Hands, Weil returns to a medium she used in the late 1940's and early 1950's with her then husband, Robert Rauschenberg. In 1948 Weil and Rauschenberg attended Black Mountain College. While at BMC, Weil and Rauschenberg began experimenting with blueprint paper. The blueprints used light sensitive paper and a sunray lamp to capture large scale silhouettes.
The Museum has long been interested in collecting work by artists who taught or studied at Black Mountain College. With the recent partnership between the Museum and Mary Emma Harris and the development of the AAM Collection Growth Plan, expanding our collection of BMC work has become a top priority. Leaf Hands is a monumental work by a seminal BMC artist. BMC was a unique school that used an interdisciplinary and experimental approach to arts education. Although it lasted only 24 years, from 1933-57, and enrolled fewer than 1200 students, Black Mountain College launched a remarkable number of the artists who spearheaded the avant-garde in America of the 1960's.
This piece was recently purchased by the Museum's 2009 Collectors' Circle during their annual purchase party. This was a rare opportunity to acquire a truly significant work and we are grateful to the members of the Collectors' Circle for making the acquisition possible. The Museum's Collector's Circle is a group art lovers who meet regularly to learn about personal art collecting and to support the Museum's permanent collection through the annual purchase of works of art. Contact us to learn more about this prestigious group!
For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
December 21 - 27, 2009
 Lonnie Holley, Teaching My Child How to See Grandmother's Mask,
1992, Acrylic Painting, 27.38 x 26.25 inches. Gift of Delphia Lamberson and Hoke Smith Holt, Asheville Art Museum Collection, 2002.01.04.24
Lonnie Bradley Holley was the seventh of 27 children. Never completing the seventh grade in school, he says he educated himself by reading "National Geographic" magazines.
Holley began his artistic life in 1979 by carving tombstones for his sister's two children who died in a house fire. He used blocks of a soft sandstone-like by-product of metal casting which had been discarded in piles by a foundry. He believes that divine intervention led him to the material and moved him to produce artwork.
Inspired to create, Holley made other carvings and assembled them in his yard along with various found objects.
Outsider art has been traditionally understood as work that falls outside mainstream culture usually because of one or more factors such as class, race, mental handicap or imprisonment. As outsiders, the artists are commonly unaffected by, isolated from, and most importantly uninfluenced by Art as a grandiose identity. Outsider art is originally created for the artist and not an institution, society or market. The value is determined by the creator, not the observer. Outside artists tend to be moved by their own relationships, faith, personal histories, external forces and immediate environments. As with certain other Outsider artists, Holley began producing art after a personal tragedy and described himself as giving way to a greater force - that "divine intervention" he mentions.
For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
December 14 - 20, 2009
 Georgia Blizzard, I am Just a Little Pebble in the Sand,
late 20th century, earthenware, 4.5 x 6.25 x 5.75 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection, Museum Purchase, 2006.06.02.85
Georgia Blizzard's (1919-2002) work falls under the rubric of Outsider art. Outsider artists are commonly unaffected by, isolated from, and most importantly, uninfluenced by art as a grandiose identity. Many Outsider artists begin making work as adults, often after an illness or personal tragedy; such is the case with Georgia Blizzard who was born in Saltville, Virginia May 17, 1919. Her family moved to Plum Creek when she was a small child and she and her sister played along the creek. Too poor to have store-bought playthings, they learned to use the creek's clay to make their dolls, dishes, animals and other toys.
During World War II Georgia Blizzard worked in a munitions factory, and later in a textile mill. In 1958 she became ill and had to have a lung removed. To help supplement the meager family income, she and her sister made and sold Indian relics. Finally, Georgia began to make her own pots, fired and colored with bark, leaves or mud. Her pieces were very personal often providing her with a way to free herself from private demons and sorrows. Her works, frequently depicting local or family characters from her memory, have a pre-Columbian quality. I am Just a Little Pebble in the Sand reflects her concerns with human and personal insignificance.
Georgia Blizzard produced less than 100 pots per year and is highly sought after by individuals and institutions interested in American Folk and Outsider artists.
This piece is currently in the Museum's exhibition Looking Forward: New Works and New Directions for the Permanent Collection. Its inclusion in this exhibition points to the Museum's dedication in collecting Outsider Art as part of its long-term collection growth plan. Visit the other Works of the Week from this month for a continued discussion on Outsider Art.
December 7 - 13, 2009
<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->  Mattie Lou O'Kelley, Rooms
1978, 24 x 30 inches, oil painting. Asheville Art Museum Collection, Gift of Randy Siegel, 2002.17.02.21
Like many Outsider artists, Mattie Lou O'Kelley began her artistic endeavors late in life; she didn't start painting until she was 50.
Born in Georgia, she grew up on a farm in the rural community of Maysville, the seventh of eight children. As a girl, she helped around the house and farm, quilting blankets and canning vegetables, among other chores. Mattie attended school only to the ninth grade because she was needed at home. She never married and lived a quiet, reclusive life after the death of her parents. She worked at a variety of jobs: a seamstress, a cafeteria cook, and later as a worker in a mop yarn mill. At the age of 50, Mattie retired from the mill and four years later ordered canvas and oils from the Sears and Roebuck Catalog. Her subjects center on the life she lived and commemorate the nostalgic scenes of her childhood. Her paintings brought her both national and international recognition and she is often compared with Grandma Moses.
Although many of O'Kelley's works celebrate a rural life, she was also interested in the bustle of the city. The 1978 painting Rooms exemplifies the energetic and engaging view from her studio apartment in New York City. This painting can be seen in the exhibition in Gallery 1 as part of the Museum's exhibition, Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum. Looking Back celebrates the Asheville Art Museum's collection and highlights some of the Museum's holdings in Southeastern and Western North Carolina artists. As part of its collecting strategy, one of the Museum's collecting focuses is on Outsider Art. Since many Outsider artists are Southern it is fitting that the Asheville Art Museum have a strong collection. Although similar in style, Outsider Art is not Folk Art; Outsider artists are completely removed from the mainstream and their art is made purely for themselves. For more on this contrast, scroll down to last week's piece. More on Outsider Art next week!
November 30 - December 6, 2009
 Kate Clayton (Granny) Donaldson, Cow Blanket
1936, Crocheted wool appliqués on a wool background, 30.7 x 35 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection, Gift of Peggy Dodge, 1976.62.71
Kate Clayton (Granny) Donaldson was born in 1864 in Marble, a small town in Western North Carolina between Bryson City and Murphy. She was a traditional artisan using the basic methods of crocheting and appliqué, but moved beyond tradition with these colorful folk art cow blankets, as they came to be called. The motif usually consisted of a crocheted man, woman and sometimes children, with a flower pot, various animals and a tree of life. A member of the Southern Highland Handicraft Guild saw one of her blankets and encouraged Donaldson to make more. Her pieces were generally made and sold in the 1920's and 30's.
This piece is currently on display in the Museum's exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum. The exhibition is divided into four sections; this piece is in the room Alone and Together, which juxtaposes pieces from the collection to facilitate further investigation and dialogue of the artworks. Looking Back celebrates the Asheville Art Museum's collection and highlights some of the Museum's holdings in Southeastern and Western North Carolina artists, including documenting and preserving works from the region's unique craft culture.
As part of its collecting strategy, one of the Museum's collecting focuses is on Outsider Art, many pieces of which come from the South.
Although similar, Outsider Art is different from Folk Art. Outsider artists are completely removed from the mainstream and their art is made purely for themselves. In contrast, many of the Folk artists remain within the mainstream of the art world, even if they fail to practice its style. Generally they accept its subjects, technique and even its values, because they hope for public, if not official recognition. Their work often comes out of an artistic or craft tradition and their creations are within the boundaries of a community and a culture.
Granny Donaldson said, in a 1959 interview with John Parris one year before her death, "I can't rightly tell you how I come to make the first one. Nobody taught me or showed me. I never got the ideas from anybody and I never copied one for the good reason I'd never seen one, much less heard tell of one." Yet according to Allen Eaton in Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands, Donaldson saw a similar blanket used in Italy to drape over the backs of cows during festivals and created her own version. No matter what the correct account may be, Granny Donaldson's Cow Blankets are her own personal invention and have become folk art classics.
You decide if this piece can be considered Outsider Art. Tune in next week for a continued discussion on Outsider Art.
For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
November 23 - 29, 2009
Stoney Lamar, Blue Tree Shoes,
2009, Mixed media sculpture, walnut, milk paint and steel, 74 x 17 x 8 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection, Museum purchase with funds provided by John and Robyn Horn & Blue Spiral 1, 2009.26.30.
Stoney Lamar (1951- ) received his BS degree in industrial arts (wood technology) from Appalachian State University. A friend's borrowed lathe led him away from his original goal of designing and building furniture and into sculpted woodturning. His apprenticeship with Mark and Melvin Lindquist freed him from many self-imposed restrictions and limitations of traditional lathe approaches.
This piece is one of the most recent works to be added to the Asheville Art Museum's Permanent Collection. It is currently on display in the Museum's exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum , and it is a testament to the Museum's focus on collecting fine craft by regional artists as part of its long term collecting strategy. The Museum is also dedicated to collecting large sculptural pieces.
This sculpture was purchased through the generosity of John and Robyn Horn and Blue Spiral 1, including owner John Cram. These individuals have enabled the Museum to strengthen its Permanent Collection through their generous support. Individuals, and their gifts to the Museum, significantly contribute to the Museum's growth; support like this piece allow the Museum to become a stronger steward to the community of regionally and nationally significant art so that it may educate and preserve it as cultural artifacts for generations to come.
This is one you have to see in person! Walk around it and see how it changes.
November 16 - 22, 2009
Sally Gall, Spill,
1999, photograph, black and white silver gelatin print,30 x 29.75 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection, Gift of the Artist, 2008.17.9.
Sally Gall has been taking photographs for over 25 years. Her stunning images have the ability to create moods that invoke strong emotional reactions from the viewer. Her artistic photographs embody mystique, romance and longing. While she made a name for herself for her black and white photographs, Gall has just recently begun to take photos in color.
The Asheville Art Museum received this photograph last year as a gift from the artist and it is currently in the exhibition Looking Forward: New Works and New Directions for the Permanent Collection. Its inclusion in this exhibition points to the Museum's dedication in collecting contemporary photography as part of its long-term collection growth plan.
Sally Gall received a BFA in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1978. She has taught and lectured extensively in the US and abroad. Her public collections include the Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and many others. Gall is represented by Julie Saul Gallery in New York where she recently closed her tenth solo show.
November 9 - 15, 2009
Kent Washburn, untitled
1967, silver gelatin print, 10.63 x 13.5 inches, Gift of Mrs. Helen L. Gumpert, 1967, 1967.1.05.91
Kent Washburn moved to Asheville, North Carolina and worked as an administrative assistant with the Redevelopment Commission. In 1966 he shot 46 photographs for the Commission's Urban Redevelopment project to document the residents and living conditions of the East Riverside district of Asheville. Washburn left Asheville soon after and pursued a career in law, later becoming a District Court Judge in Burlington, North Carolina.
These photographs are now part of the Asheville Art Museum's collection. Many of them were exhibited at the Museum in October 1966 and again in May 2004. Individual works have been used in several of our exhibitions including the current exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum. The Asheville Art Museum collects pieces that are reflective of the local community as part of its collecting strategy.
November 2 - 8, 2009
 Anthony Lord, Adjustable Floor Lamp,
circa 1930, wrought iron, 63 x 26 inches, Gift of the Artist, 1981, 1981.01.57.
Anthony (Tony) Lord was a well-known Asheville architect and community leader. He was also a fine iron worker and from 1929 - 1937 he owned and managed a blacksmith shop on Flint Street in Asheville. Lord, as he was often called, graduated in architecture from Yale. After graduating he joined his father's architectural practice but there was little work for an architect in the years following the Depression and Lord concentrated on his iron work. He stated that he'd always had an interest in smithing, but he also had help from the Boone brothers, a family of fine blacksmiths. Lord named his business Flint Architectural Forgings and although he made a few items for personal use most of his work is permanently attached to buildings - from Asheville homes, to the Yale campus and the National Cathedral. This wrought iron lamp is adjusted by squeezing the coiled metal spring and raising or lowering. It is signed F A F (Flint Architectural Forgings).
Anthony Lord was an architect and an artist, but he was also a strong advocate for keeping trees in downtown Asheville, and his efforts, including a 1945 donation of two trees for Pritchard Park, eventually led to the formation of the city's Tree Commission. In 1984, the Asheville Art Museum held a show of his watercolors, ironwork and architecture. Among other honors, the Lord Auditorium at the Buncombe County Library is named for him.
This lamp illustrates Lord's extraordinary skill and attention to detail and is indicative of the Museum's collecting focus on fine craft from Western North Carolina. It is currently located in the Museum's exhibition Looking Forward: New Works and New Directions for the Permanent Collection which highlights the exceptional growth of the Permanent Collection and showcases some of the areas in which the Museum has collected in depth.
October 26 - November 1, 2009
 Mark Peiser, Crane Road Spring, PWV 236,
1980, blown glass, torch-worked imagery, 11.5 x 6 x 6 inches. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. George Ovanezian, 2004, 2004.18.03.50.
This week, Mark Peiser will be awarded a North Carolina Award, the highest civilian honor the state bestows, for his significant contributions to the state and nation in the field of fine arts. Read more about it on the NC Department of Cultural Resources Newspage. Congratulations!
In 1967 Mark Peiser chanced upon a glass course at the Penland School of Crafts in Penland North Carolina. The Penland experience was life-changing and by 1969 he was the first resident craftsman in glass and purchased nearby land to build his home and studio. Peiser has been in the forefront of the studio glass movement for over 40 years. He is a consummate glass student constantly exploring and learning about its capabilities. Peiser has had several distinct periods in his career. From his early Experimental works, through his Paperweight Vase series and his Inner Space pieces to his Forms of Consciousness and today his Cold Stream Cast Glass he continues to push the glass envelope.
Peiser has received many grants and awards and has appeared in numerous exhibitions over the years. He was a founder of the Glass Art Society and has been a member of the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass, the American Craft Council, the International Sculpture Center, and the Board of Directors at the Penland School of Crafts.
Crane Road Spring is one of Peiser's Paperweight Vase series and illustrates his amazing skill with glass and imagery. In 1979 Mark Peiser took some time off to consider his career in glass. He spent the fall and winter in Ballston Spa, New York where nearly every day he passed a grove of fenced birch trees on Crane Road. At the first of the year he returned to Penland and glassblowing. Although he never saw Crane Road in the spring his mind conjured the scene to create this piece. This work is illustrated in the catalog from his solo exhibition at the Asheville Art Museum in 2003 Looking Within: Mark Peiser, the Art of Glass. The donors, Dr. and Mrs. George Ovanezian, had lent Crane Road to the Museum for the exhibition. When it ended they gifted Crane Road Spring and two other Paperweight Vases to the museum.
Peiser also has a piece on display in the Museum's current exhibition Looking Forward: New Works and New Directions for the Permanent Collection. Peiser's work in the Permanent Collection reflects the Museum's focus on collecting Western North Carolina crafts.
"Look hard at his work, for history will certainly judge it among the most significant contribution to the medium in years to come." -Dan Klein, Independent Scholar and Author
October 19-25, 2009
 Bacia Edelman, Teapot,
2008, stoneware, 6.75 x 11.25 x 4.5 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection, Gift of the Artist, 2008.26.01.82
This teapot was finished in 2008 and is of stoneware clay, hand-built with a lichen glaze over many layers of colored engobes. Edelman's work consists of functional and non-functional teapots and vessels, but she uses experimental glazes and firing techniques.
As Melanie Herzog states about Edelman in her book on cermanics, "Teapots hold a particular interest for Edelman. As a formal challenge, the pot, lid, handle, spout and their interrelationships present appealing and endless potential for exploration and manipulation... While her pots pay homage to functional vessel traditions, she does not limit herself to producing functional pieces. For Edelman, function is optional."
Edelman, who died last month at the age of 84,was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1926. She attended Black Mountain College in the summer of 1946. After leaving BMC, Edelman received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, her MFA from Alfred University School of Ceramics in 1950, and then studied at the Akademie Fhr Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, Austria between 1952-53. Edelman has also taught at the University of Illinois.
This piece is currently on display in the Appleby Memorial Gallery as part of the Museum's exhibition Looking Forward: New Works and New Directions for the Permanent Collection which highlights the exceptional growth of the Permanent Collection in recent years and showcases some of the areas in which the Museum has collected in depth.
One of the areas in the Museum's collecting focus is work by Black Mountain College artists. Black Mountain College, located just outside of Asheville, was a unique school that used an interdisciplinary and experimental approach to arts education. Although it lasted only 24 years, from 1933-57, and enrolled fewer than 1200 students, Black Mountain College launched a remarkable number of the artists. Works from the previous two weeks in our Work of the Week series are also by artists connected to Black Mountain College.
For more information about this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
Source : Herzog, Melanie. “Bacia Edelman: Function is Optional” Ceramics: Art and Perception. No. 71, 2008. 67- 72
October 12-18, 2009
 Ruth Asawa, Untitled (S.372),
circa, 1954, iron wire, 30 x 24 x 24 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection, Gift of Lorna Blaine Halper, 2007.27.09.33
This wire sculpture is part of a series begun in the 1950's utilizing a form within a form technique in which the smaller, inner spheres are connected to the outer spheres in a continuous surface that progresses inside to outside. Asawa feels that the form within a form is one of the most important concepts in her work.
Ruth Asawa was the fourth of seven children born to Japanese immigrant farmers. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor when Ruth was 16, she and her family were sent to internment camps in New Mexico and Arkansas. There, Ruth spent her free time studying drawing and painting with professional artists who were also interned.
After attending Milwaukee State Teachers College from 1943-46, she enrolled at Black Mountain College. There she studied with Josef Albers, Buckminster Fuller and Ilya Bolotowsky.In the summer of 1947, on a trip to Mexico, Asawa learned techniques for crocheting baskets that she experimented with to make her wire sculptures.
This piece is on display in Gallery 6 at the Museum as part of Ruth Asawa: Drawing in Space, a solo show featuring Asawa's looped wire sculptures and paintings done at Black Mountain College. It was given to the Asheville Art Museum in 2007 by Lorna Blaine Halper, another alumna of BMC who will be featured in a show that opens in December at the Museum.
Black Mountain College, located just outside of Asheville, was a unique school that used an interdisciplinary and experimental approach to arts education. Although it lasted only 24 years, from 1933-57, and enrolled fewer than 1200 students, Black Mountain College launched a remarkable number of the artists. The Museum is dedicated to collecting and preserving the art of Black Mountain College as part of its collecting strategy so that its regional and national context can be fully explored.
For more information about this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
October 5-11, 2009
 Buckminster Fuller, Geodesic Dome Blueprints,
1981, mylar and paper, 25 x 35.5 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection. Museum purchase with funds provided by 2006 Collectors' Circle members Rob Pulleyn, Cherry and Paul Lentz Saenger, 2006.31.64
Buckminster Fuller was expelled from Harvard for being an irresponsible and disinterested student!
This blueprint, from the Portfolio Inventions: Twelve Around One, explores what Buckminster Fuller is best known for, the creation of geodesic domes. Fuller's first successful dome was built at Black Mountain College with the help of his students in 1949, and he later went on to design the United States Pavilion at the Montreal Worlds' Fair Expo in 1967.
This painting is currently in Gallery 4 as part of the Museum's exhibition, Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum. Black Mountain College, where Fuller was a teacher, was a unique school that used an interdisciplinary and experimental approach to arts education. Although it lasted only 24 years, from 1933-57, and enrolled fewer than 1200 students, Black Mountain College launched a remarkable number of the artists who spearheaded the avant-garde in America of the 1960s. The Museum is dedicated to collecting and preserving the art of Black Mountain College as part of its collecting strategy so that its regional and national context can be fully explored. Come to the Museum to learn more about the Museum's collecting strategies through its exhibition Looking Forward: New Works and New Directions for the Permanent Collection.
This 2006 acquisition was made possible by Collectors' Circle members Rob Pulleyn and Cherry and Paul Lentz Saenger. The Museum's Collectors' Circle is a group art lovers who meet regularly to learn about personal art collecting and to support the Museum's permanent collection through the annual purchase of works of art. Contact us to learn more about collecting art!
For more information about this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
September 28 - October 4, 2009
 Roger Brown, Plants That Glow in the Dark, Tra-La,
1986, oil and glow-in-the-dark paint on canvas, 48 x 72 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection. Museum purchase with funds provided by the Chaddick Foundation, the 2006 Collectors' Circle, R.K. Benites and Dr. Michael J. Teaford, 2007.08.20
This large painting glows in the dark! Plants That Glow in the Dark, Tra-La uses Brown’s signature dark, almost silhouetted figures patterned as migrant workers in a field. With the lights turned out, glow-in-the-dark paint emerges as nuclear power plant silos showing the man-made dangers lurking in the landscape. Roger Brown was a leader in the stylistic American art movement of the 1960s and 1970s known as Chicago Imagism.
This painting is currently in the Museum's exhibition,Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum. In 2006, the Museum purchased this painting with a grant from the Chaddick Foundation, funds from the Museum’s Collectors’ Circle and additional pledges from Collectors’ Circle members R.K. Benites and Dr. Michael J. Teaford.
The Museum's Collector's Circle is a group art lovers who meet regularly to learn about personal art collecting and to support the Museum's permanent collection through the annual purchase of works of art. Contact us to learn more about this prestigious group.
For more information about this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!
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