Seattle Art Blog

Archive for the ‘Museum News’ Category

On May 10 from 6:30-8:30pm the City of Kenmore celebrates the grand opening of their new Arts of Kenmore Gallery and city hall. Features are works by  Liana Bennett, Seiko Konya and Joe MacKechnie. Entertainment provided by JIVE, a jazz choir from Bothell High School. Light refreshments will be served.

Cornish College of the Arts, 1000 Lenora in Seattle, presents EXPO 13, May 10 through 25, expanding the College’s annual art and design exhibition to include more student work in different disciplines. The opening reception is Friday, May 10, from 5 to 9 pm and a series of Student Spotlights will be featured on Saturday, May 11 from 1 to 5 pm.

VALA Art Center , 7303 164th Ave NE in Redmond,  presents its newest art installation by Redmond Clay Studio, “Works in clay by the teachers and their students”, which displays May 10 through June 28. The Redmond Clay Studio operates out of the Old Redmond Schoolhouse Community Center and is run by the City of Redmond Parks & Recreation Department .

The Wing Luke Museum, 719 S. King Street I Seattle, just opened “Under My Skin: Artists Explore Race in the 21^st Century.” The exhibit challenges conventional ways of talking about race, putting viewers face-to-face with the artwork of 26 artists who address this complex yet personal issue. The artists, diverse in ethnic and cultural backgrounds, present a range of  stories that have personally affected them in some way, including violence against communities of color, transnational adoption, and navigating long-standing racial stereotypes. In addition to the artwork on display, visitors are invited to explore their experiences in interactive parts of the exhibit, such as a reworking of their passport to better capture their identities.

Have you seen it yet?

Reserve your tickets online now before it’s gone.

You don’t want to miss this truly exquisite collection from the 1st Earl of Iveagh’s bequest to Great Britain—an extraordinary gift from Edward Cecil Guinness, heir to his namesake’s brewery. Many of these artworks have never left Europe before, and they’re only on view for a limited time before heading back to London. The exhibition closes on May 19. “Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough” reflects the tastes of the Belle Époque with "big paintings, big dresses and big hair" and is "appropriately grand," according to The Seattle Times. It’s a must see!

On view at the Henry Art Gallery, on the western edge of the University of Washington campus,  through September 29 is “Paul Laffoley: Premonitions of the Bauharoque.” Laffoley’s exhibition presents a comprehensive and focused selection of 12 works that spans his career and includes the artist’s earliest mature work from 1965 to his most recent ideas, meditations, and theoretical explorations in the transdisciplinary pursuit of a utopian ending.

Opening April 6 at the Whatcom Museum in Bellingham and running through July 7, 2013, “Clearly Art: The Beauty of Glass” shares its name with another show that originated at the Whatcom Museum twenty years ago titled “Clearly Art: Pilchuck’s Glass Legacy.” Between 1992 and 1996, it traveled to a dozen museums around the country. In the twenty years since, the museum’s collection has grown to include a number of new glass works, thanks to a gift from the Safeco collection. “Clearly Art” presents many of these new pieces to the public for the first time. The exhibition is curated by Western Washington University curatorial intern Hilary Hamilton.Showing at the same time in adjacent galleries is “Jim Olson: Art in Architecture,” which  runs through June 9, 2013. The internationally-recognized Seattle-based architect is a glass artist in his own right, often showcasing the glass artworks of his clients within structural expressions of glass and light. Shown: Ellen Ziegler, Hypangogue 3, 2009, Courtesy of the Whatcom Museum Collection, gift of the artist.

Best known for The Very Hungry Caterpillar and more than 70 other picture books, Eric Carle has created a significant and varied body of artwork that was never intended for book publication. “Beyond Books: The Independent Art of Eric Carle” will open in two galleries at Tacoma Art Museum  on April 6 and run through July 7, 2013. The exhibition will also highlight Carle’s forays into three-dimensional realms, including metal sculptures and painted glass assemblages created in cooperation with his friend, the renowned glass artist Tom Patti, as well as costumes and set designs for The Magic Flute, a semi-staged opera performed by The Springfield Symphony in 2001. In conjunction with the exhibit, the artist will give a talk on April 7 at 1pm at Philip Hall at the University of Washington Tacoma, and a book signing will follow at the Tacoma Art Museum  at 3pm. On April 10 at 10:30am, Stephanie A. Stebich, Museum Director, will discuss his independent art in “ArtArt.”

Cutting edge, up-to-the-minute video installation you must see at the Seattle Art Museum downtown. It’s hard to pay close attention  when you’re driving and have your eyes on the road, so I suggest you park your car and walk around the museum’s entrance at First and Union so you can get a really good look. The huge LED screen  wraps around the northwest corner and mirrors the movements and constantly changing environment in our area.

Psaligraphy, the art of paper cutting with design, detail, and wonder, is showing at the Nordic Heritage Museum, 3014 NW 67th. Street in Seattle. The art created by Bit Vejle, “Scissors for a Brush,” which will be shown here for the first time beyond Scandinavia, runs March 22 through June 16.  Vejle will visit the Museum and lead public tours of the exhibition at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, March 22 and at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 23.

Additionally, the show  will feature four original paper cuts by Hans Christian Andersen on loan from the Hans Christian Andersen Museum in Odense, Denmark. This is a rare opportunity to see these fragile works in the United States.

Second Thursday

Blitz, Capitol Hill’s Art Walk from 5-8pm. More information and maps: www.blitzcapitolhill.com

West Seattle Art Walk, 6pm-9pm, Visit www.westseattleartwalk.blogspot.com.

Third Friday

Port Orchard Art Walk from 4-7pm. May through October

Third Saturday

Everett Art Walk, 4pm-7pm. Visit www.everettartwalk.org.

LaConner Art Walk, 4pm-8pm. www.laconnerchamber.com/

March 16

Splash: Art at the Museum, Harbor History Museum in Gig Harbor will showcase art available

for sale via live and silent auctions. Visit www.harborhistorymuseum.org.

Wearable Art at the Museum of Northwest Art in La Conner from 10am-5pm.  The Museum has been totally given over to 40 hand-picked artists from the Northwest. All of their unique, handmade creations are for sale and part of each sale goes to support the Museum.  This is the 29th year of MoNA Style, one of the Museum’s most popular annual events.  Free entry is made possible by Key Bank, La Conner. All-day modeling at participating restaurants in La Conner. For more detailed information on all of the participating artists, please visit the website at www.museumofnwart.org/mona-style.

Tacoma Art Museum community symposium, “The Art of reconciliation and the Holocaust” at 12pm. Visitors can also see “Memories and Meditations: A Retrospective of Michael Kenna’s Photography,”  that includes photographs from the concentration camps taken in the 1990s by Michael Kenna.

“Paper Unbound: Horiuchi and Beyond,” part of a group exhibit underscoring the versatility of paper as an artistic medium, is on view at the Wing Luke Museum, 719 South King Street, through July 14. The exhibit highlights the trailblazing collage master Paul Horiuchi, a Seattle artist whose early collage work was inspired by Chinatown’s battered storefront advertisements. Horiuchi’s work eventually engaged both the Northwest landscape and his Japanese heritage through painted and torn papers collaged onto canvas or board. The group exhibition features a total of eight artists. Shown: Paul Horiuchi painting, 1960s. Photo by George Uchida, Courtesy Paul M. Horiuchi.

On view through September 1 at the Henry Art Gallery, 15th Ave NE and NE 41st Street,  is  “Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty,”  curated by Deborah Willis, Ph.D., a world-renowned photographer, curator, and historian of African American photography.  Featured are works from  more than 50 internationally-recognized photographers, including Cecil Beaton, Nan Goldin, André Kertész, Lee Friedlander, Lorna Simpson, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol. This exhibition brings together a juxtaposition of new and unknown works that offers a cross-cultural read on beauty through portraiture, documentary and constructed images, and fashion photography from the 19th  to the 21st centuries.

Now showing at the Bellevue Arts Museum  is one of the most unique maneki neko exhibitions to regional and international audiences. Entitled “Maneki Neko: Japan’s Beckoning Cats — From Talisman to Pop Icon,” the exhibition is drawn from a collection of 155 artfully sculpted cats from the 19th and 20th centuries. Given to the Mingei International Museum by avid collector Billie Moffitt, it is one of the most extensive maneki neko collections in the world outside of Japan. “Maneki Neko” will be on view at BAM 22 through August 4, 2013. The exhibition is organized by Mingei International Museum, San Diego, California. Local presentation curated by Stefano Catalani, and made possible by the City of Bellevue Arts Program. Japanese tansu chests generously provided by Honeychurch Antiques, Fine Asian Art, and Galen Lowe Art & Antiques. Bellevue Arts Museum is the only traveling venue for this exhibition. An accompanying full-color, award-winning, 116-page hardcover catalogue is available in the Museum Store.

Opening today at the Seattle Art Museum downtown Seattle is “Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London.“ On view through May 19, the exhibition is part of an exclusive four-stop tour through the United States. Featured are major works by Gainsborough, Hals, Reynolds, Romney, Turner, and Van Dyck.   Among other treasures, this exhibition provides a rare opportunity to see Rembrandt’s late Portrait of the Artist (ca. 1665), which has never left Europe before. A companion exhibit, “European Masters: The Treasures of Seattle,” showcases paintings from seven local collections which complement the main show. Photo: Mrs. Musters as “Hebe,” 1782, Joshua Reynolds, English, 1723–1792, oil on canvas, 94 x 58 1/4 in., Kenwood House, English Heritage; Iveagh Bequest (88028806), Photo courtesy American Federation of Arts

The Frye Art Museum, the only free art museum in Seattle,  presents a major United States museum exhibition of Nicolai Fechin (1881–1955), an émigré Russian-American painter renowned for his distinctive and innovative painterly style. Comprising fifty-five paintings and drawings, the exhibition draws from the holdings of the Frye Art Museum, museums in the United States, and private lenders in both Russia and the United States. Curated by Frye Director Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, Nicolai Fechin concentrates on the early years of the artist’s career in Russia, a period in which the Frye Art Museum has particular strength, and concludes with paintings from Fechin’s time in Taos and California. The exhibition provides a rare opportunity to recognize the accomplishments of this important painter. It is the first overview of Fechin’s work at the Frye since 1976. The exhibition  runs through May 19. Shown: Nicolai Fechin. Lady in Pink (Portrait of Natalia Podbelskaya), 1912. Oil on canvas. 45 ½ x 35 in. Frye Art Museum, 1990.005.

Showing through May 5, and for his first exhibition at the Frye Art Museum in his new capacity as Deputy Director, Collections and Exhibitions, Scott Lawrimore has commissioned thirty-six Seattle artists to create new work in response to musical compositions based on Chamber Music, the first published work by James Joyce.

“Northwest Artists Collect,” on view through October  at the Museum of Glass  glimpses the personal art collations of seven Pacific Northwest glass artists. Items for the exhibition, both glass and non-glass, were chosen out of the artists’ personal collections to be displayed alongside an original work, providing a deeper understanding of the artists’ inspirations. Artists participating in the exhibition are: Martin Blank, Joseph Gregory Rossini, Richard Royal, Ginny Ruffed, Preston Singletary, Capp Thompson and Dick Weiss. Shown: Cappy Thompson. Searching for the Bodhisatta: A Spirit Canoe Carries My Soul toward the Divine Child of My Dream, 1996. Vitreous enamel reverse-painted on blown glass; 21" x 11 1/2". Collection of Cappy Thompson. Photo by Duncan Price.

“Now Here is also Nowhere” is on view at the Henry Art Gallery, 115th. Avenue NE and NE 41st. Street, through May 5. Works in the exhibition  deal with familiar but largely intangible such as death, love, imagination, memory, knowledge systems, and the unknown. Shown: Simryn Gill. Garland (miniature version).