Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Parkland Art Gallery's State of the Art 2011: National Biennial Watercolor Exhibition










Robert Cottingham, W.T., Watercolor, 1982



Curated by Chalen Phillips
Sponsored by the Friends of Martha Seif


February 14 through March 29, 2011


Upcoming Exhibit Lecture
Wednesday, March 2 at 3:00pm in the Gallery
 

Don Lake, professor emeritus, and Jamie Kruidenier, current watercolor instructor, will provide additional history and commentary about the work in the exhibition.


Chalen Phillips is Curator of Collections at the Springfield Art Museum in Springfield, Missouri. Mr. Phillips has served as a juror for the Watercolor U.S.A. 2009 and the Prints U.S.A. 2009 competitions and is a member of the Watercolor Honor Society.


In his curatorial essay, Phillips states that his background in art history strongly influenced the selections he has made from Springfield's enormous collection. "I am not an artist; I simply admire the way art tells a story or reflects a certain period in time. This is my passion," he said. "I strive to understand how history was shaped by the raging whirlwind of events made evident in the artistry of the times. With that in mind, I chose artists who depicted a period of time from the past such as the documenting of a disastrous flood, the death of a bee, or a simple moment of peace."

Participating Artists from the Springfield Art Museum Collection include:
Kent Addison, Mary L. Aro, Nell Blaine, Charles Burchfield, Chen Chi, Robert Cottingham, John Steuart Curry, Adolf Dehn, Elsie Bates Freund, Donald Holden, Gregory Litinksy, John Marin, Don Nice, Philip Pearlstein, David Plank, and Joseph Raffael.


Parkland Art Gallery's spring hours
Monday through Friday from 10:00am to 3:00pm

Monday through Thursday from 6:00pm to 8:00pm

Saturday from 12:00pm to 2:00pm

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Happy Birthday, Spurlock Museum!

After years of planning, it's all starting to come together: a year-long party celebrating our 100th birthday. There's all kinds of events and a special exhibit. The exhibit's opening celebration is February 20th from 12-4. I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of old friends AND to meeting people who are visiting for the first time...friends of the future.

This whole preparation experience has been a lovely combination of old and new. Our director, Wayne Pitard, and Martha Landis, one of our Board members, spent months researching the Museum's history. So many stories have come to light, filling in years that have been blank in institutional memory. We also have new student employees, graphic design majors, who are giving us fresh ways of looking at the familiar images of friends and staff that are being used to create scrapbooks.

Visit our website (www.spurlock.illinois.edu) for details on all of the excitement. We hope to see you all very soon.