PULLMAN, Wash. — The Museum of Art at Washington State University
begins its spring schedule Jan. 19 with “At 60: Norman Lundin, Landscapes
and Still Lifes.” The display continues through March 26 at the museum
gallery in WSU’s Fine Arts Building.
The exhibition, featuring work completed by the well-known Northwest artist,
was organized by Seattle’s Frye Art Museum to celebrate Lundin’s 60th
birthday and as part of its contemporary “Viewpoints” series.
An opening reception, hosted by the Friends of the Museum of Art, is set for
7-9 p.m. Jan. 18 in the Fine Arts Building atrium. During the reception,
performances by Encore, a group of young musicians from Palouse Suzuki
Strings, will be featured at 7:45 and 8:15 p.m. Parking for the reception will be
available in the Fine Arts parking structure.
Lundin is known for his depiction of blank space and quiet shafts of light
falling into empty rooms or onto atmospheric landscapes. He has used the
theme of light throughout his more than 35 years as an artist, particularly the
light of the skies of the Pacific Northwest. This exhibition uses the landscape
and still life as subjects for his portrayal of light, with many of the works
combining the two genres.
“I have attempted to use light in a way that can create a subjective-expressive
response to inanimate and emotionally neutral objects… Light on objects is
the subject matter,” the artist comments.
A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of
Oslo, and the University of Cincinnati, Lundin has worked as an artist for more
than three decades. His work has appeared at galleries in New York, San Diego,
Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and is also represented in a number of
museum and private collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New
York, the Seattle Art Museum, the Henry Art Gallery, the Tacoma Art Museum
and WSU’s Museum of Art.
He is the recipient of a number of grants and fellowships, including a Fulbright
Grant for Painting, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant for Painting, and a National
Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship. Lundin currently resides in
Seattle, where he is an art professor at the University of Washington.
Lundin and Matthew Kangas, an independent art critic and exhibitions curator
from Seattle, will be the featured speakers in this year’s John Mathews Friel
Memorial Art Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Jan 20 in Bryan Hall Auditorium.
The two will participate in a dialogue, “Redefining Representation,” moderated
by WSU Museum of Art Director Dyana Curreri-Ermatinger. Kangas will
address issues and concepts involving the redefinition of representation in the
work of Lundin in dialog with the artist. Both critic and artist will also
investigate the ideas and concepts related to representation as a theme in
contemporary modern painting.
The Friel Lecture is part of the Museum’s spring lecture series, “Redefining
Landscape,” which also features lectures by WSU faculty members Paul Hirzel,
architecture, Feb. 3; Chris Watts, fine arts, Feb. 17; Kenneth Struckmeyer,
landscape architecture, March 9; and artist Doug Hollis on March 23. The
Hollis lecture is being presented as part of the campus dedication for his
sculpture “Oionos,” which was recently installed atop the Holland Library.
Docent tours of the exhibition, for groups of four or more, can be arranged by
calling the Museum office. The WSU Museum of Art is open Monday-Friday,
10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Tuesday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, 1-5 p.m. The
museum will be closed March 11-12 and March 18-19 for spring break, and
open by appointment only March 13-17.
All events are free and open to the public. The gallery is wheelchair accessible.
Parking permits for weekday visitors may be purchased at the Cougar Depot at
Davis Way (Hwy. 270) and State Street, or at WSU Parking Services on Wilson
Road, directly uphill from the Fine Arts Center. On weekday evenings, parking
is available in the Fine Arts parking structure, off Stadium Way at Grimes Way,
for an hourly fee. Weekend parking is free.
Funding for museum exhibitions and programs is provided by Washington
State University, the Friends of the Museum of Art, and private donors. A
portion of the museum’s general operating funds for the fiscal year has been
provided through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a
federal agency providing general operating support to the nation’s museums.
Additional support has been provided by the Kenneth and Marleen Alhadeff
Foundation; the Delta Air Lines Foundation; the Washington State Arts
Commission; the National Endowment for the Arts; the WSU Visual,
Performing and Literary Arts Committee; Pullman Kiwanis Club; and private
donors.
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