Recent Acquisition: Gaudy Sphinx

The Asheville Art Museum is pleased to announce the recent gift of 41 artworks from the collection of Fleur S. Bresler, which features important examples of modern and contemporary American craft including wood and fiber art, as well as glass and ceramics. Gaudy Sphinx by North Carolina-based artist Anne Lemanski is a highlight among this recent gift. The work takes the form of a coiled snake, adorned by a skin of brightly colored butterfly wings made of hand-stitched paper. Lemanski’s art often explores the symbiotic and complex relationship between humans and animals, and the exploitation of the natural world for human needs. This artwork joins two other sculptures by Lemanski in the Asheville Art Museum’s Collection.

Lemanski was born in 1969 and studied at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI, the Studio Art Center International in Florence, Italy, and the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, MI. Lemanski lives and works in Spruce Pine, NC. The artist received the 2010–11 North Carolina Arts Council Grant. She has held residencies at the McColl Center for Art and Innovation in Charlotte, NC, Penland School of Craft in Penland, NC, and the Ox-Bow Summer School of Art in Saugatuck, MI.

Artists included in this gift are among the most renowned names in American craft history including Carolyn Mazlooni, Edward Moulthrop, Kay Khan, Kay Sekimachi, and Rude Osolnik who were early proponents of the mid-20th century revival of craft, and artists like Michael Sherrill, Stoney Lamar, and Anne Lemanski who are important to the craft culture of Western North Carolina as well as national craft history.