Gold Leaf Gallery presents Victor Thall

A Forgotten Abstract Expressionist: Victor Thall
Gold Leaf Gallery

Gallery talk and exhibit on July 28, 2010, from 5 to 8 p.m.

On July 28, 2010, from 5 to 8 p.m.,  Gold Leaf Gallery of Tyler, Texas will present a gallery talk and exhibition of the paintings of Victor Thall, an Abstract Expressionist and member of the original New York school.

At the age of eleven, Victor Thall was enrolled at the Student’s Art League, its youngest member. In the 1920s while a student in France Thall met Henri Matisse at his home. He also taught at the Student Arts League in the late 40s.

Robert Coates, critic for the New Yorker recognized the artistic of Thall at the 1949 Whitney Museum’s Annual of Contemporary American painting exhibition when he wrote, “The level of work is credibly high, and although there are a few outstanding pieces, there are a heartening number that are distinctly above average, among those I like the best… Victor Thall’s, The Waterfall, the Max Beckman Nice, Boulevards des Anglais and George Prestopino’ small, red and jolly Track Gang.”

Again, in 1950 the Whitney represented Thall’s work along with the best known Abstract Expressionist painters: de Kooning, Gottlieb, Motherwell, Guston, O’Keefee, Rothko and Stamos. In 1950, Thall left the country for ten years and traveled to Mexico, Jamaica, and Europe. He spent most of his time in Torrevieja and Palma Mallorca, Spain thus depriving America of one its greatest painters. Between 1946 and 1968 he exhibited in numerous galleries in New York, Chicago, London, Florida and Palm Springs, California.

Since his death in 1983, his paintings and papers have been in storage. This is a rare opportunity for Texans to view the work of a great American artist. The gallery talk, “A Forgotten Abstract Expressionist: Victor Thall” is presented by Robert L. Stevens, Professor, the University of Texas at Tyler in conjunction with Gary Herwood, Executor of the Estate of Victor Thall.

For additional information contact the Gold Leaf Gallery at 903-597-2645.

Gold Leaf Gallery presents Victor Thall

“We at the Tyler Museum of Art are thrilled to participate in this program, and we hope that our community’s beloved members of the military will enjoy the Museum with their families,” said TMA Director Kimberley Bush Tomio. “This couldn’t have happened at a more exciting time, because these families will be able to view Babar’s Museum of Art from June 6–August 22 at no charge. This is something we can do to say thank-you!” The TMA will open Memorial Day, Monday May 31, from 10 am to 5 pm, to kick off its participation in the summer-long program.

“America’s museums are proud to join the rest of the country in thanking our military personnel and their families for their service and sacrifice,” said National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman. “I cannot imagine a better way to do that than welcoming them in to explore and enjoy the extraordinary cultural heritage our museums present. The works of art on view this summer will inspire and challenge viewers, and sometimes they will just be a great deal of fun.”

“There have always been wonderful examples of partnerships between museums and military installations, but the scale of this gift from the museum communities to military families is thrilling,” said Blue Star Families Chairman Kathy Roth-Douquet. “Military families work hard for this country, and it is gratifying for us to be recognized for that. We anticipate that thousands of military families will participate in the program and visit museums this summer – many of them for the first time. Blue Star Families will work hard to help our military families make the most of these opportunities.”

In addition to being Chairman of Blue Star Families, Ms. Roth-Douquet is married to a Marine Corps officer, who is currently deployed to Afghanistan. They have two children, and Ms. Roth-Douquet and the children plan to take a road trip this summer to visit Blue Star Museums up and down the East Coast.

More than 600 museums in all 50 states and the District of Columbia are taking part in the initiative. The American Association of Museums, the Association of Art Museum Directors, and the Association of Children’s Museums each sent a letter from NEA Chairman Landesman inviting museums to participate in this program. In addition to thirty children’s museums across the country, participating museums represent a broad range of art, history, science, and cultural topics — from the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, to the California Surf Museum in Oceanside, California, to the Mission San Luis, a living history site and historic landmark in Tallahassee, Florida, to the International Quilt Study Center & Museum at the University of Lincoln – Nebraska, the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, and the Seacoast Science Center in Rye, New Hampshire.

Blue Star Museums

Blue Star Museums runs from Memorial Day, May 31 through to Labor Day, September 6, 2010. The free admission program is available to active duty military and their immediate family members (military ID holder and five immediate family members), which includes active duty Reserve and active duty National Guard. Some special or limited-time museum exhibits may not be included in this free admission program. For questions on particular exhibits or museums, please contact the museum directly. To find out which museums are participating, visit www.arts.gov/bluestarmuseums. The site includes a list of participating museums and a map to help with visit planning.

Museums that wish to participate in Blue Star Museums may contact Nicole Murray at 202-682-5578.

This is the latest Arts Endowment program to bring quality arts programs to the military, veterans, and their families. Other NEA programs for the military have included Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, Great American Voices Military Base Tour, and Shakespeare in American Communities Military Base Tour.

About Blue Star Families

Blue Star Families is a national, non-partisan, non-profit network of military families from all ranks and services including guard and reserve, with a mission to support, connect and empower military families. In addition to morale and empowerment programs, Blue Star Families raises awareness of the challenges and strengths of military family life with civilian community and leaders. Membership includes spouses, kids, parents, service members, veterans and civilians.

Operation Appreciation is an initiative of Blue Star Families that seeks to connect military families to the larger community. Blue Star Families 2009 annual survey shows that 94 percent of military families feel that the larger community doesn’t truly understand or appreciate the sacrifices we make for the country. Through initiatives such as Blue Star Museums, Blue Star Families provides avenues for the larger community to show that they do understand, in meaningful ways that enrich the lives of military service members, spouses, children and parents. For more information, please visit www.BlueStarFam.org.

About the National Endowment for the Arts

The NEA is a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts – both new and established – bringing the arts to all Americans, and providing leadership in arts education. Established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government, the Arts Endowment is the largest annual national funder of the arts, bringing great art to all 50 states, including rural areas, inner cities, and military bases. For more information, please visit www.arts.gov.

The Tyler Museum of Art, accredited by the American Association of Museums, is located at 1300 S. Mahon Ave., adjacent to the Tyler Junior College campus off East Fifth Street. Regular hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. (The Museum is closed Mondays and major holidays including July 4, 2010. This year, TMA will be open Memorial Day and Labor Day as a part of its participation in the Blue Star program.) Lunch is available in the Museum Café from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and the TMA Gift Shop is open during Museum hours. For more information, call (903) 595-1001 or visit www.tylermuseum.org.

The Old Lady joined the discussion. “I like this one,” she said, “because it is peaceful. I feel calm when I look at it. The elephants do not get in each other’s way.” by Laurent de Brunhoff 2003.

In celebration of its summer exhibition, Babar’s Museum of Art, the Tyler Museum of Art is publishing a free Babar program “passport” for young visitors to the exhibition and related events and activities. You may pick up your own copy of the twenty-page Passport at the TMA and other community organizations who are hosting Babar events beginning Saturday, May 1.

Designed to look similar to a United States passport, the TMA’s “passport” lists information about the summer of Babar, including a calendar of events, community partner organization information, and event descriptions. Participants are encouraged to use their “passport” as a guide and will be able to receive stickers at all participating venues. Fill your “passport”, and you can enter to win a grand prize drawing at the close of the exhibition.

How the Passport Works

1. Pick up your “passport” at the TMA or any of the partnering organizations.
2. Read to discover events and activities.
3. Attend the events you like, and ask to receive your sticker when you go.
4. Fill up all the pages in your “passport”, and experience a summer filled with excitement and education!
5. Fill out your entry form and return to the TMA to be entered to win a prize at the end of the exhibition.
6. Keep your “passport” and remember all the fun you had with Babar!

“Passports” may be picked up at the following locations: All Saints Episcopal School; Bernard Restaurant; The Caldwell Zoo; Discovery Science Place; The Lindale Library; Cameron – J. Jarvis Troup Municipal Library; Tyler Civic Theatre; Tyler Public Library; and the Tyler Museum of Art.

The Tyler Museum of Art, accredited by the American Association of Museums, is located at 1300 S. Mahon Ave., adjacent to the Tyler Junior College campus off East Fifth Street. Regular hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. (The Museum is closed Mondays and major holidays.) For more information, call (903) 595-1001 or visit www.tylermuseum.org.

Laurent de Brunhoff, (French, b. 1925). The Old Lady joined the discussion. “I like this one,” she said, “because it is peaceful. I feel calm when I look at it. The elephants do not get in each other’s way.” 2003. Watercolor, graphite and ink on paper. 8 3/4 x 7 1/4 in. Courtesy of Mary Ryan Gallery, NYC

King Tut at the Dallas Museum of Art (photo by Mr. Holga)

Are you ready for your first assignment? Great!

As a reader, follower and / or friend of Dallas Art News, we would like to enlist your help. Dallas Art News is expanding our list of museums to include more venues in and around Texas. For each museum listed we would like to have an original photograph of the museum. Your assignment is to photograph one of the museums on our list and send it to Dallas Art News.

Rules

I know. Why ruin a really fun assignment with rules.

First, the photograph you take must be your photograph. Do not send in another person’s work. The same fingers used to email us the digital image file must have been used to release the shutter on your camera. I know this sounds redundant, but photographers have feelings too, and some have lawyers. We only want to post images we have permission to use from the actual owner.

Second, the photograph must be good, creative, interesting, current, colorful, mysterious, unique, monochromatic, etc. We would love to see museums at first daylight, high noon or with star trails.Take your photograph with latest professional digital SLR or a pinhole camera. The only catch is that the museum must be recognizable in your photograph.

Third, digital image files must be received by Sunday, February 14, 2010.

Prize

Prize? What prize?

Really, there is no prize. But you do get your name and web site listed with your photograph on our museum page. And you get the glory of saying, “My photograph is posted on Dallas Art News!” This might not sound like a big deal, but consider how many digital image files we are going to receive for the Dallas Museum of Art. And only one will win.

Enter Your Photograph

Enter your photograph by sending a digital image file to assignment@dallasartnews.com. Image files should be in JPEG format and not bigger than 1 MB.  Send you digital image file by Sunday, February 14, 2010.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Will I get paid if my photograph is selected?

A. No. The only payment received will be our warmest appreciation.

Q. What if my digital image file is over 1 MB?

A. We will print your image and then shred it. Don’t make us waste the ink and paper.

Q. What sizes do you recommend for my photograph?

A. Scale your image so that the longest side is only 1000 pixels. We will scale it down from there.

Q. Where do I send my digital image file?

A. Please email your digital image file to assignment@dallasartnews.com.

Q. When does this assignment end?

A. This assignment ends on Sunday, February 14, 2010. Send us your digital image file on or before this date.

Q. Can I send you more than one digital image file for consideration?

A. Yes and No. Yes, you can send us more than one digital image file for consideration but the additional photographs cannot be of the same museum. You must select your best shot of each museum you photographed.

Q. Who will judge the winner for each museum?

A. If we only get one photograph per museum, then no judging will be needed. For only a handful of images, then Mr. Holga will judge. If we receive a lot of really creative images, then maybe we will put it up for a vote.

Q. How frequently are you asked questions?

A. All the time. I talk to myself.

Pinhole Photograph of Sculpture Garden at DMA by Mr. Holga, 2009

Big Momma's Room by Sedrick Huckaby, 2008

New Works: Highlights from the Permanent Collection
Tyler Museum of Art
Through May 23, 2010

Stop by the Tyler Museum of Art (TMA) during the first part of 2010, and you will discover a selection of the Museum’s latest acquisitions. But New Works: Highlights from the Permanent Collection does more than simply present a sampling of significant pieces recently obtained by the TMA; the exhibition tells a tale of a growing and vibrant institution that has, since 1971, cultivated the community’s interest in the visual arts and developed an extensive permanent collection that is both interesting and important. New Works: Highlights from the Permanent Collection opened Wednesday, December 22, 2009 and will remain on display in the Museum’s North Gallery through Sunday, May 23, 2010.

A museum’s permanent collection defines the very essence of the institution. It gives the museum meaning and purpose, and becomes a lasting legacy for past, current and future generations. The Tyler Museum of Art’s permanent collection has been rapidly growing in recent years in step with the institution’s exhibition and education programs. The collection was begun in tentative steps during the Museum’s second year, and in 1987, the decision was made to form a permanent collection. Works of art gifted to the Museum prior to that date were “retroactively” accessioned, and a formal collecting plan was developed, focusing on contemporary Texas art, but also including works from 19th century to the present.

Over the ensuing 36 years, the permanent collection of the TMA has seen periods of great advancement, including a gift of Mexican folk art from Laura and Dan Boekman. Today, the Laura and Dan Boeckman Collection of Mexican and Latin American Folk Art is one of the largest collections of its kind in the United States. Other works of art continue to be gifted to the Museum and others have been selected for purchase with funds donated by benefactors. Such individuals – and in some case, organizations and foundations – became vital partners in forming the collection and in defining the Museum’s character and purpose. When visitors arrive at the TMA and walk through New Works, they will begin to know the personality of the Tyler Museum of Art as envisioned and made reality by founding members and continuing supporters of the Museum.

New Works: Highlights from the Permanent Collection presents a wide variety of visually stunning works of art. There are three Collectors’ Circle selections included in this exhibition: Vincent Falsetta, Untitled (CL 05-3) from 2007, Sedrick Huckabee, Big Mama’s Room from 2008, and Mark Messersmith, Those Who Believe from 2009. These three works express varying degrees of abstractions associated with different representational qualities; along with Karl Umlauf’s The Slag Pullers and Franklin Willis’ The 7th Year Harvest, both acquired in 2008, they are particularly noteworthy paintings in the exhibition.

While there are works by such artists as Josef Albers, Al Held, Robert Motherwell, Clayton Pond, and Edward Zucca who are associated with other regions of the country, both Falsetta and Huckabee are Texas artists as well as many others in the exhibition. Some among them, such as painters William B. Montgomery, Karl Umlauf, and Ancel Nunn; sculptors Piero Fenci, and James Surls; and photographer Skeet McAuley have strong East Texas and even Tyler connections.

All of the pieces included in New Works: Highlights from the Permanent Collection are not only visually pleasurable to the visitor, but also are concrete testaments to the ever-widening web of goodwill and relationships that link this Museum in Tyler to a much wider community. In addition to the Museum’s own purchases, it has been individuals, institutions and corporations across the nation that have gifted these works. TMA Curator, Ken Tomio, believes that it is the collection of the TMA that ties the Museum to the global community in the most profound and practical way. “In the same manner that our lives – and art and culture – are connected to the global community, the Museum is connected to the wider world,” said Mr. Tomio.

The Tyler Museum of Art now holds over 1200 works in its permanent collection with many more hundreds in long term and permanent loans. The rapid growth in the permanent collection is one of the most compelling reasons behind the Museum’s plans to construct a new building. “We have an outstanding facility in our current building, but the Museum has grown so unbelievably fast that we simply no longer have enough space to foster the growth the way we should – and must continue to do,” TMA Director Kimberley Bush Tomio said.

Plans for a new Tyler Museum of Art building are underway, and construction will begin once a certain percentage of the necessary funds are raised. In the meantime, the Museum remains committed to showcasing items from the permanent collection in addition to organizing and hosting traveling exhibitions. “We will ensure that our permanent collection will continue to grow and reflect the role of the Museum as a vibrant and relevant institution in this community,” Ms. Tomio said.

Special Events

Saturday, January 9, the TMA will offer a free Family Day from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Visitors will enjoy a free art activity focused on themes presented in New Works: Highlights from the Permanent Collection as well as self-guided art tours and light refreshments. Family Days are offered free of charge at the TMA every second Saturday.

Sunday, January 24, Stephen Vollmer will present a lecture titled “Folk Art: Language and Identity” from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. in the TMA Classroom. The event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments are served and all visitors are encouraged to tour the exhibitions.

Thursday, May 20, artist Vincent Falsetta will offer a lecture on abstract art from the Tyler Museum of Art’s Classroom, from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. Visitors may observe an example of Falsetta’s artwork which is included in New Works: Highlights from the Permanent Collection.

Sponsors

This exhibition was organized by the Tyler Museum of Art. Collectors’ Circle Sponsors are the Julietta Jarvis Foundation, Inc., Joyce & Bill Pirtle, Sheryl Rogers Palmer, and the A.W. Riter, Jr. Family Foundation. The Tyler Museum of Art is supported by its members, Tyler Junior College, and the City of Tyler.

The Tyler Museum of Art, accredited by the American Association of Museums, is located at 1300 S. Mahon Ave., adjacent to the Tyler Junior College campus off East Fifth Street. Regular hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. (The Museum is closed Mondays and major holidays.) Lunch is available in the Museum Café from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and the TMA Gift Shop is open during museum hours. For more information, call (903) 595-1001 or visit www.tylermuseum.org.

Slag Pullers by Karl Umlauf, 1959

Big Momma's Room by Sedrick Huckaby, 2008

Time Box (one of four boxes in 4 Salvaged Boxes) by wHY Architecture, 2007

Picture This: TMA Goes Green
Tyler Museum of Art
October 10, 2009 to February 21, 2010

What do “green” architecture and photography have in common? Traditionally, not much, but in a unique pairing of exhibitions, the Tyler Museum of Art has linked these two seemingly unrelated subjects to create an unusual fine arts experience that will capture the interest of a large audience.

Formed in the spirit of good stewardship and conservation, 4 Salvaged Boxes: Sustainable Creative Design and Light Footprints: New Museum Site Photography by Robert Langham are joined together to take a local look at two international endeavors. 4 Salvaged Boxes aims to demonstrate the sustainable design features of the Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM) which was designed by TMA project architect, wHY Architecture. The GRAM was the first new art museum in the world to receive the Gold LEED certification when it opened in 2007 and has received international accolades for its innovative “green” design. The joint exhibitions open Saturday, October 10, 2009 and will be open to the public through February 21, 2010 in the Museum’s Bell Gallery.

“The 4 Salvaged Boxes is an exhibition about the approach and process of creative sustainable design,” says Aaron Loewenson, wHY Architecture Associate and 4 Salvaged Boxes team leader. “Each of the 4 boxes was created from materials salvaged from the construction of the Grand Rapids Art Museum and function as a traveling ‘cabinet of curiosities’, telling the story of sustainable design. When closed, the boxes function as their own traveling crates. When opened, the boxes unfold to present information about the sustainable design features of the Grand Rapids Art Museum and other innovative green projects, through the use of diagrams, models, material samples and video.” The exhibition has traveled from the GRAM to several venues in Asia, back to the United States to the Speed Museum in Louisville, Kentucky and now to Tyler, Texas.

In 2008, TMA Director Kimberley Bush Tomio announced that the Museum’s Board of Trustees had named the award-winning team of wHY Architecture, led by Yo-ichiro Hakomori and Kulapat Yantrasast, as its principal design architect on the new TMA facility. Hakomori and Loewenson will make appearances during special events held in conjunction with the exhibit at the Tyler Museum of Art.

Dogwood in Lightening-split Tree, Spring by Robert Langham, 2009

While the 4 Salvaged Boxes exhibit suggests design techniques and aesthetics that characterize projects by wHY architecture, including the future home of the Tyler Museum of Art, Light Footprints: New Museum Site Photography by Robert Langham documents and elevates to art form the current state of the new museum site. Through this collection of images taken over the course of two years in spring, summer, fall and winter, Langham has created visually arresting images of the almost undisturbed East Texas nature currently on the property. When the new museum is built, it is these images that will greet museum visitors from inside and outside the building. The evergreens and the deciduous trees, the blooming flowers and brushes as well as the meandering creek and grass that grows on its banks are all examples of what wHY Architecture and the Tyler Museum of Art aim to preserve by utilizing the sustainable design techniques demonstrated by the exhibition.

Langham is a native of Tyler and has been photographing East Texas and Western landscapes since 1971, when he took a photojournalism class at Tyler Junior College. He has pursued his interest in fine art photography to wide acclaim while maintaining a successful commercial photography business right here in the community. Langham has dedicated a large part of his focus to the East Texas region in order to create an iconic vision of the landscape.

wHY Architecture is a Los Angeles-based firm with a stellar track record in design on projects including Michigan’s Grand Rapids Art Museum, the Art Bridge spanning the Los Angeles River in southern California, and numerous gallery renovations for the Art Institute of Chicago. Yantrasast, the firm’s executive/creative director, previously served as project architect on the team of Pritzker Prize winning design architect Tadao Ando for the 153,000-square-foot Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, which opened in 2002 to international acclaim.

Support for 4 Salvaged Boxes: Sustainable Creative Design and Light Footprints: New Museum Site Photography by Robert Langham is provided in part by the Texas Commission on the Arts. Collectors’ Circle sponsors are Marilyn and John Glass. Media sponsors are the Tyler Morning Telegraph and TylerPaper.com.

Special Events

The Tyler Museum of Art is proud to present the following special events to be held in conjunction with 4 Salvaged Boxes: Sustainable Creative Design and Light Footprints: New Museum Site Photography by Robert Langham. On Sunday, October 18, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., wHY Architecture associate Aaron Loewenson will present a lecture on sustainable architecture titled, “4 Salvaged Boxes: wHY Green Design.” The lecture is the second installment of the TMA’s Fall Lecture series and will take place in the TMA Classroom.

Saturday, October 24, the TMA will present Family Day from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. with free activities related to Light Footprints: New Museum Site Photography by Robert Langham. The event will be held at the new museum site located at the corner of Lazy Creek Drive and University Boulevard in Tyler, and will offer guests the chance to make their own “light footprints.” In the case of inclement weather, Family Day will be relocated to the TMA Classroom.

Sunday, November 15, the public is invited to the third episode of the TMA’s Fall Lecture Series featuring Light Footprints photographer Robert Langham. The lecture titled “Tracking Light Footprints” will be held from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the TMA Classroom, and will explore techniques and images presented in Light Footprints: New Museum Site Photography by Robert Langham. Langham will share his unforgettable stories from his photography excursions and discuss the aesthetic issues related to landscape and nature photography.

The First Friday Tour to be held on December 4 will lead visitors through 4 Salvaged Boxes: Sustainable Creative Design inside the Museum’s Bell Gallery from 11 a.m. to 12 noon. February’s First Friday Tour will feature Light Footprints: New Museum Site Photography by Robert Langham. Visitors will be guided through the exhibition from 11 a.m. to 12 noon on February 5, 2010.

The Tyler Museum of Art, accredited by the American Association of Museums, is located at 1300 S. Mahon Ave., adjacent to the Tyler Junior College campus off East Fifth Street. Regular hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. (The Museum is closed Mondays and major holidays.) Lunch is available in the Museum Café from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and the TMA Gift Shop is open during museum hours. For more information, call (903) 595-1001 or visit www.tylermuseum.org.

Dancing in the Streets by Jean Lacy, 1976

Divine Kinship: Ancient Forms and Social Commentary, The Art of Jean Lacy
Tyler Museum of Art
September 6 – December 6, 2009

The Creation Story, the Civil Rights Movement, the Harlem Renaissance, and Hip Hop music are among the vibrant components which converge in the Tyler Museum of Art’s (TMA) fall exhibition Divine Kinship: Ancient Forms and Social Commentary, the Art of Jean Lacy, open September 6 – December 6, 2009. Admission to Divine Kinship is free.

Known for her use of mixed media and collage, Laura Jean Lacy is an African American artist who uses her work to explore iconography that, while central to the African American experience, is also universal in its scope and implications. The exhibition was organized by the TMA, and features over 80 pieces to be displayed in the Museum’s North Gallery.

“It is definitely an honor to feature the work of Jean Lacy in Tyler,” says TMA Director Kimberly Bush Tomio. “Lacy is recognized as one of the most important artists in America. I first saw her work in the exhibit “Black Art: Ancestral Legacy, The African Impulse in African-American Art” at the Dallas Museum of Art in 1989 when I was a staff member there.”

Divine Kinship will guide viewers through a visual representation of images Lacy believes to be evocative not just of the African American culture, but also the universal human experience. Icons such as mother and child, the family, the couple, twin figures, and the warrior/hero are reshaped and integrated into contemporary settings and then imbued with religious, social, historical, and political meaning. Lacy’s use of mixed media and found objects create both a literal and figurative dimension to each piece, as she uses physical layering techniques along with an artistic layering of ideas and conjecture.

By invoking a broad collection of both famous political and popular figures, ranging from civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. to hip hop music’s Notorious B.I.G., Lacy’s art creates a pastiche that is both provocative and appealing to viewers of all ages and backgrounds.

“The exhibition offers a visual narrative history for a new generation of Americans and a reminder for generations in passing,” says guest curator, Mr. Phillip E. Collins. “Lacy believes that working in collage, assemblage, and mixed media helps to give expression to her interests that are central elements to African American culture and other cultures as well.”

Jean Lacy is a native of Washington D.C. but has lived in Dallas, Texas for the last 38 years. A museum education specialist, Lacy has developed a number of educational programs aimed at emphasizing cultural enrichment through the study of art, artifacts, and memorabilia related to African American history. She studied at North Texas State University (University of North Texas) in Denton, Texas for graduate studies in museum education, and then she received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Lacy completed additional studies at the Art Students League of New York and at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Guest curator for Divine Kinship: Ancient Forms and Social Commentary, the Art of Jean Lacy is Phillip E. Collins. Mr. Collins is the retired Chief Curator at the African American Museum, Dallas, TX and the newly appointed Executive Director for the Memnosyne Foundation in Dallas. He has curated over 60 exhibitions and has served as Treasurer on the Texas Association of Museum (TAM) Board of Trustees in Austin, Texas.

Special Events

The Tyler Museum of Art is proud to present the following special events to be held in conjunction with Divine Kinship: Ancient Forms and Social Commentary, the Art of Jean Lacy. Seniors’ Day will be held at the TMA on Monday, September 14 with docent-led tours beginning at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Complimentary lunch will be provided by Texas Spine & Joint Hospital; space is limited, and reservations are required. Admission to Seniors’ Day is free to those visitors age 65 and older.

Family Day is set for Saturday, September 19. Visiting families will enjoy free admission and art activities designed to reflect techniques used by Jean Lacy. Family Day activities will be held from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Museum.

The general public is invited to attend a free Fall Lecture Series featuring the artist Jean Lacy and guest curator Phillip Collins. Fall Lecture Series I is scheduled for Sunday, September 20 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and will be held in the TMA Classroom. Divine Kinship will also be the focus of the Museum’s First Friday Art Tours on October 2 and November 6; admission is free.

Support for Divine Kinship: Ancient Forms and Social Commentary, the Art of Jean Lacy is provided in part by East Texas Chapter, The LINKS, Inc., and Texas Spine & Joint Hospital. Collectors’ Circle Sponsors are Agnes and Frank Ward. Media Sponsor is The Breeze and Brisa – Waller Broadcasting.

Tyler Museum of Art

The Tyler Museum of Art, accredited by the American Association of Museums, is located at 1300 S. Mahon Ave., adjacent to the Tyler Junior College campus off East Fifth Street. Regular hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. (The Museum is closed Mondays and major holidays.) Lunch is available in the Museum Café from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and the TMA Gift Shop is open during exhibition hours. For more information, call (903) 595-1001 or visit www.tylermuseum.org.

Dancing in the Streets by Jean Lacy, 1976