Final Days for Moran Exhibitions

Thomas Moran (English/American, 1837-1926), Bluffs - Platte Riv. Wyoming Ter., Not dated, Pencil, 6-7/8 x 9-3/4 inches, Gift of Fritiof Fryxell, University of Wyoming Art Museum Collection, 2009.3.6

Only three days remain to see two Thomas Moran exhibitions at the UW Art Museum. Thomas Moran in Wyoming and Thomas Moran: Pastoral Views and Seashores will close this Sunday, August 16. That leaves only today, Friday and Saturday to view these great exhibitions. The Museum is open 10 am - 5 pm all three days. Admission is free.

Thomas Moran in Wyoming presents sketches, prints and chromolithographs that Moran created while traveling through the state. Several works depict nearby landmarks, like the Red Buttes south of Laramie and the colorful geologic features of Green River.

Thomas Moran: Pastoral Views and Seashores shows images from England and the east coast of the United States, where he lived and worked extensively. The exhibition contains prints and drawings of sand dunes near East Hampton, lighthouses and stormy seas.

These two exhibitions are a great way to see the work of one of the West's best-known artists and see his skill in a variety of media. For more information, call the Museum at 307.766.6622.

New Curator of Collections at the Art Museum

The Art Museum has hired Nicole Crawford as the Curator of Collections, a new position at the Museum.

Nicole Crawford is the former gallery director at the Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe. During her eight years with the gallery, she supervised staff , conducted research and worked with numerous collectors. In her role as curator of collections for the Art Museum, she will oversee the development of the museum’s collection, curate exhibitions from the collection for the museum’s exhibition programs, enable internship opportunities in collections research and scholarship, and chair the museum’s Collections Advisory Committee. Crawford has an MA in Art History and Museum Studies from the University of Nebraska. Her scholarship focus is American Modernism, but she has conducted research and written extensively on many other art genres, including Western American Art.

New "Visual Arts Series" Announced

The University of Wyoming Art Department and the Art Museum are pleased to announce the new Visual Arts Series, a joint effort to promote the arts on campus and in the Laramie community. Both art entities are leaders in bringing contemporary artists on to campus and this new partnership allows for further promotional and educational opportunities.

The Visual Arts Series is a string of events including Art Talks, Gallery Walk Throughs, hands-on demonstrations by contemporary artists, and more at the Art Museum and at the Fine Arts Building. A complete list of events for the fall is below. Look for posters around campus and town, and in your mailbox in the coming weeks.

Please join us this fall for one, some or all of these great art events! For more information, call the UW Art Museum at 307.766.6622 or the UW Art Department at 307.766.3269.

09.03
Gallery Walk Through: Brian Burkhardt
10:30 am
Art Talk: Brian Burkhardt
6:30 pm
Panel Discussion: Scientists View Nature Through the Lens of Art: The Seen and Unseen
7:30 pm
University Art Museum

09.10
Art Talk: Kwang-Young Chun
6:30 pm
University Art Museum

09.11
Gallery Walk Through: Kwang-Young Chun
10:30 am
Gallery Walk Through and Book signing: Norman L. Sandfield
4 pm
University Art Museum

09.14
Readings and Book signing: Red Desert: History of a Place
5 pm
University Art Museum

09.21
Art Talk: James Victore
7 pm
Fine Arts 111

09.23
20:20 Statewide
7 pm
Little America in Cheyenne, in conjunction with the Wyoming Arts Council Arts Summit

10.03
Art Talk: David Carson
6 pm
Arts and Sciences Auditorium

10.05
Netsuke Carving Demonstration: Nick Lamb
6 pm
University Art Museum

10.13
Gallery Talk: Ina Kaur
7 pm
Gallery 211

10.19
Art Talk: John Grade
6:30 pm
Fine Arts 111

10.24
Art Talk: James Surls
11 am
Coe Library

10.27
Art Talk: Norman Akers
7 pm
Fine Arts 111

New Artmobile Exhibition on View

Don Wiest (American, 1909-1995), Untitled, 1946, Watercolor, 14-15/16 x 19 inches, Gift of Dr. Elizabeth H. Wiest, University of Wyoming Art Museum Collection, 2005.2.19

Photo courtesy of the UW Art Museum.

The UW Art Museum has launched a new Ann Simpson Artmobile exhibit, Where We Are is Just the Beginning, which will travel the state through June 30, 2011. This exhibit features 14 prints and paintings from the Art Museum’s permanent collections that depict a variety of neighborhoods and time periods from across the country. Urban or rural, industrial or pastoral - each artist's perspective helps us think about our own favorite places.

By knowing our neighborhood, can we know the world? Can artists’ perspectives of other places help us better understand our own place? Can multiple perspectives of a single place enrich our experience and understanding? How are artists' perspectives similar to those of others, such as scientists' and historians'? These are just some of the questions we’ll be exploring during the next two years as the Artmobile travels to schools and communities in Wyoming.

Where We Are is Just the Beginning is currently on view in the Centennial Complex Gallery, located at 2111 Willett Drive, Laramie. It will be on view through Wednesday, August 12. It’s a great time for teachers and art educators to preview the exhibition and consider the possibilities of bringing it to your school or institution.

Artmobile Curator, Beth Weztbarger, works with teachers to design lesson plans and creative activities that support essential learning in the classroom and align with district and state education standards. For more information and to schedule the Artmobile contact Beth Weztbarger, Artmobile Curator, at (307) 399-2941 or e-mail artmobile@uwyo.edu.

Funding for the Ann Simpson Artmobile Program is provided by the Julienne Michel Foundation, the FMC Corporation, Helga and Erivan Haub, and Ann and Alan Simpson. The Ann Simpson Artmobile van is provided by FMC Corporation and the McMurry Foundation. Additional support provided by the Ann Simpson Artmobile Endowment and the Wyoming Arts Council through the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wyoming State Legislature.

Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational Continues

A coordinated effort is required to make Jesus Moroles' 

Granite Windows on Prexy's Pasture turn

Photo courtesy of A. Trent

Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational, the major exhibition of public art installed across Laramie and the University of Wyoming last year, has been extended for an indefinite period of time.  The exhibition, originally planned to end in August 2009, has been positively received, encouraging the University of Wyoming Art Museum, which originated the exhibition, to request loan extensions from many of the artists represented.  

Several works are scheduled to be removed from the exhibition: Deborah Butterfield's Billings, a welded metal, larger than life work in the museum's rotunda will be returned to the artist after August 15.  Steven Siegel's long, linear construction, It Goes Under, installed along the Laramie Greenbelt, is planned for removal the middle of September.

For information on sculpture locations, a Walking/Driving Tour Guide is available on the Art Museum webpage. 

Last Chance to see Thomas Moran at the UW Art Museum

Thomas Moran (English/American, 1837-1926), Castle Geyser, 

1874, chromolithograph, 11-9/16 x 16-3/16 inches, 

gift of Fritiof Fryxell in memory of John D. Fryxell, 

University of Wyoming Art Museum Collection, 2009.3.18

Photo courtesy of the UW Art Museum

The University of Wyoming Art Museum is featuring the artist Thomas Moran with two exhibitions of his work this summer, Thomas Moran in Wyoming and Thomas Moran: Pastoral Views and Seashores. Both exhibitions are scheduled to close on August 15.

Thomas Moran spent much time in the Wyoming Territory during the 1870s. He traveled frequently to the Green River Area and completed many sketches and watercolors of the topography of the region. Moran joined the government-sponsored Hayden Expedition to the Yellowstone Region in 1871. He made numerous sketches of Yellowstone’s geological features. These images, and photographs of expedition photographer William Henry Jackson, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park, the nation’s first park, in 1872. Thomas Moran in Wyoming presents watercolor sketches, drawings, and prints made from his many trips to Wyoming that convey the various forms of producing images for publication at the time. Also included are drawings of the Laramie Plains, the Red Buttes area south of Laramie and the Platte River.

Thomas Moran: Pastoral Views and Seashores explores the etchings Moran made of the seashore and the sea. The effects of water and light were an inspiration for Moran and he traveled to many locations to study the work of such artists as J.M.W. Turner, who was also inspired by sunlight and water and an inspiration to Moran. He was the first artist to build a studio in the East Hamptons, a residence and studio where he and his wife Mary Nimmo Moran summered and worked after 1884.

For additional information on the exhibitions, call the UW Art Museum at (307) 766-6622 or visit www.uwyo.edu/artmuseum.

Netsuke Carver to Give Demonstration at the Art Museum

Nick Lamb, Netuske carver
Image courtesy of the artist

Nick Lamb will be at the Art Museum on Monday, Oct. 5, to give a demonstration on carving netsuke from 6 - 8 pm. Netsuke are small carvings used in traditional Japanese clothing to counterbalance pouches hung over the belt of kimonos.

The demonstration is scheduled to coincide with the exhibition, Ichiro: A Life's Work of Netsuke, The Huey G. and Phyllis T. Shelton Collection. Ichiro was a 20th century carver and the Shelton collection is the largest known collection by a single netsuke artist. It was gifted to the University of Wyoming Art Museum this year. The exhibition runs from Sept. 12 through Dec. 22, 2009.

Lamb was trained as a graphic designer at the Berkshire College of Art in his native England. He started woodcarving in 1973; by the early 1980s, he was winning woodcarving prizes. He carved his first nestuke in 1983. Since then, he has become one of the most celebrated non-Japanese carvers of netsuke and other traditional Japanese miniature forms.

Lamb's work has been exhibited internationally, including the British Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, the Museum of East Asian Art in Berlin, the Chiba City Museum of Art in Japan, and the Museum of Art & Design in New York. He is a member of the Society of Animal Artists.