PULLMAN, Wash — The Washington State University Museum of Art will open its next exhibit, “Large Drawings,” from the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection, on Monday, Feb. 12. The exhibit showcases 40 of the Center’s best examples of contemporary works with dimensions in excess of 40 inches.
The exhibition runs through April 1 in the Museum of Art, located in the Fine Arts Center on the Pullman campus.
“Large Drawings” is being toured with the assistance of Smith Kramer Inc., a fine arts service company located in Kansas City, Mo. The WSU Museum of Art is one of only ten in the United States and the only Northwest museum to host the exhibition.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a reception is planned for Thursday, Feb. 22, from 6:30-9 p.m. in the Fine Arts Center Atrium. In addition, the new curator of exhibitions, Roger Rowley, will present a lecture on “Large Drawings” on Thursday, Feb. 22 at 7:45 p.m. in the Fine Arts Center.
The exhibition includes Ira Korman’s “Sweet Virginia,” a charcoal-on-paper drawing with familiar textures and gentle diagonals that draw the viewer into the presence of an aging woman. The viewer catches the woman between waking or sleeping, or, given her age and posture, between life and death.
Other works included in the exhibition are Frederick Brown’s richly colored “Hero (Study for the Last Supper Center Figure)” and Charles White’s psychologically chilling “Children’s Games.”
Other artists in the exhibition include Gregory Amenoff, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Will Barnet, William Beckman, Adolf Benca, Frederick Brown, Joan Brown, Paul Caster, Robert Colescott, Warrington Colescott, William Daley, Lesley Dill, Diane Edison, Heide Fasnacht, Rafael Ferrer, Viola Frey, Nancy Grossman, Dieter Hacker, Tony Hepburn, John Himmelfarb, Ira Korman, Robert McCauley, Melissa Meyer, Peter Mollenkof, Elizabeth Murray, John Nava, John Newman, Frank Piatek, Katherine Porter, Susan Schwalb, Buzz Spector, Robert Stackhouse, Donald Sultan, Stephen Talesnik, Irvin Tepper, William Tucker, Bill Vuksanovich, Tom Wesselmann, Charles White and Betty Woodman.
Monumental drawing emerged as an independent art form during the 1980s boom in the art market. Artists of all disciplines and stylistic persuasions eagerly embraced drawing large as a response to market forces leading artists to seek easier and cheaper means of production. Its emergence as a primary medium was established with grand scale, forceful content, technical confidence and disregard for the preparatory sketch. Its sources lie in the utilization of the idiosyncratic line by abstract expressionist painters, printmakers working with crayon on lithography stones, minimalist sculptures using diagrammatic forms, and performance artists using drawings for backdrops.
In addition to traditional drawing media such as pencil, charcoal, ink, pastel, watercolor and silverpoint, the works included in the museum exhibition represent works on paper executed in acrylic and oil as well as drawings incorporating collage, photography and printmaking.
The WSU Museum of Art is open Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 1-5 p.m. The museum will be closed Jan. 15 and March 17-25 (open by appointment March 19-23); the museum will close at 4 p.m. on Thursday, March 29.
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. Additional support has been provided by Bank of America; IKON Office Solutions; OPSIS Architects; Pullman Community Foundation/Foundation Northwest; the Pullman Kiwanis Club; Pullman Transit; Tri-State Distributors; the US West Foundation; the Washington Mutual Foundation; the WSU Visual, Performing, and Literary Arts Committee; the Washington State Arts Commission and private donors.
shrw111-01
