UPCOMING EXHIBITS
67th Allied Artists of West Virginia Juried Exhibition May 1 through June 27, 2010
Juried by Elizabeth Bennett Hupp, former Assistant Curator, Columbus Museum of Art and PhD candidate University of California, Berkley and Robert Bridges, Assistant Professor of Art at West Virginia University and Curator of the West Virginia University Art Collection, this exhibition includes work in all media by artists residing in West Virginia.
My Body Will Blacken: Coal, Industry, and the Miner in American Art May 1 through June 27, 2010
I hope when I’m gone and the ages shall roll,
My body will blacken and turn into coal.
Then I’ll look from the door of my heavenly home,
And pity the miner a-diggin’ my bones.
From Dark as a Dungeon (1946) by Merle Travis
Curated by Robert Bridges, this exhibition includes eighteen prints, drawings and paintings, and four Red Ribble panoramic coalfield photos from The Art Museum of West Virginia University, as well as six watercolors by William Scott from the Clay Center’s permanent collection. Works date from 1917 to 1951. Among the paintings and drawings are Rockwell Kent’s 1945 oil on canvas To Make Dream Homes Come True, Philip Evergood’s 1938 ink on paper The Safety Conference and Roland Schweinsburg’s 1937 oil on canvas Steel Mill. Bridges writes, “Today, the American public most likely only sees images of miners when they were associated with disasters on the evening news. This exhibition offers a broader perspective and reflects the excitement of that changing American landscape back in the early years of the industry. Mining life is presented with all of its hardships and troubles as well as the hope for and promise of better times to come.”
Moses Oley (American 1896-1978)
Worker with Mallet, ca. 1936
Lithograph on paper
The Art Museum of West Virginia University Collection
Art, Nature and the American City, 1850-1950:
Selections from the Spanierman Gallery
July 10 – October 10, 2010
Organized by Spanierman Gallery, NY
Art, Nature and the American City features paintings from major American representational art movements over a 100 year period, from the Hudson River School’s romantic landscapes to the Ashcan School’s gritty urban scenes. Among the artists are: Ralph Blakelock, William Merritt Chase, Kenyon Cox, William Glackens and John Henry Twachtman. This exhibition is curated from the Spanierman Gallery’s vast inventory. In 1902 the Spanierman family began selling antiques and paintings in New York City when Fred Spanierman left Vienna and opened Old World Antiques on 57th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues. The current Spanierman enterprise, Spanierman Gallery, LLC, is directed by Ira Spanierman. The gallery has been dedicated, for more than half a century, to dealing in the finest American paintings and sculpture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Urban and Rural Landscapes from the Permanent Collection
July 28 – November 14, 2010
Organized by the Clay Center
The Clay Center’s permanent collection includes over 200 landscapes and cityscapes dating from 1835 to 2006. This exhibition includes visitors’ favorites – such as Consumer Coal Company by Stuart Davis, Winter on the River by Ernest Lawson and Triptych West Virginia by Barry Vance – as well as works that have rarely been exhibited. Among the paintings are: Via Appia by John Linton Chapman, Hiding Places by Darren Vigil Gray, Vue d’Alger by Pierre Albert Marquet and Halcyon Days by Gayle Surface.
Stuart Davis
Consumer Coal Company
Oil on Linen
Collection of the Clay Center for the Arts & Sciences of WV
Gift of Amherst Coal Company
Geometric, Staccato and Lyrical: The Sculpture of Albert Paley
October 30, 2010 – January 23, 2011
Organized by the Clay Center
In October 2009 the Clay Center dedicated a 64 foot tall, 198,000 pound Albert Paley sculpture entitled Hallelujah. In a two-year period the project went from sketches and a cardboard maquette, to engineering drawings and the final monumental corten steel, bronze and stainless steel sculpture. Inspired by the process of this commission and questions from the community, Clay Center staff decided to organize a Paley exhibition. This exhibition explores the design and fabricating process of Paley’s most compelling site specific works. Curated by the Clay Center’s curator of art, Barbara Racker, in collaboration with Paley Studios, the exhibition includes drawings, photographs, prints and sculptural maquettes.
Albert Paley
Hallelujah
Corten steel, stainless steel, bronze
40’ x 60’
Collection of the Clay Center for the Arts & Sciences of WV
Gift of the McGee Foundationin the name of Lyell B. Clay and the parents of
John and Ruth McGee, Mr. and Mrs. H.T. McGee and Mr. and Mrs. H.T. Bouknight