PHOENIX (October 27, 2025) – On November 28, 2025, Phoenix Art Museum premieres George Elbert Burr: The Desert Etchings as part of the reopening celebrations of the institution’s Art of the Americas + Europe galleries in the newly dedicated James K. Ballinger Wing. Featuring 50 outstanding prints from the Collection of Phoenix Art Museum, the exhibition examines Burr’s practice and legacy, grounded in a commitment to depicting the high desert landscapes of Arizona, Colorado, and Southern California.  

“Phoenix Art Museum is excited to present an incredible selection of works by George Elbert Burr as part the historic renovation of the James K. Ballinger Wing,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Museum’s Sybil Harrington Director and CEO. “George Elbert Burr: The Desert Etchings will be presented in the Museum’s Orme Lewis Gallery, which is now dedicated to ongoing installations of prints and drawings—considered one of the largest yet least exhibited parts of the PhxArt Collection. Fittingly, the exhibition honors not just the desert landscapes of our region and the American West but also the legacy of an artist with deep ties to the history of Phoenix Art Museum.”

American painter and printmaker George Elbert Burr (1859–1939) was born in the Midwest and moved to New York City in 1888 to establish his career as a traveling illustrator. His work was published in popular magazines such as  Harper’s and  Frank Leslie’s Weekly, and in 1891, he served as illustrator and photographer on President Benjamin Harrison’s Western tour of the United States. After extensive travels in Europe, health challenges in 1906 led Burr to Denver, where he devoted himself to printmaking. In the winters, however, the artist visited the Southwest to make sketches, from which he produced his acclaimed “Desert Set.” In 1924, Burr moved to Phoenix and over time became deeply involved in the arts community. He eventually served as an instrumental figure in the founding of the Phoenix Fine Art Association and the community-building efforts that led to the establishment of Phoenix Art Museum in 1959. 

Throughout his prolific career, Burr created approximately 25,000 works from an estimated 367 plates. Despite such an extensive body of work—demonstrative of technical innovation and mastery—the artist remains less recognized than his European predecessors, including Albrecht Durër and Rembrandt van Rijn. George Elbert Burr: The Desert Etchingsoffers Arizona audiences the opportunity to discover a wide selection of Burr’s finely detailed prints that skillfully render resolutely American subjects.

“Burr was a technical genius capable of creating myriad effects through a variety of printmaking techniques,” said Olga Viso, the Museum’s Selig Family Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, who curated the exhibition. “He could render the tiniest burrs and spikes of a barrel cactus or ocotillo branch with mind-bending exactitude while capturing the ethereal atmospheric conditions of a twilight sky, a sandstorm, cumulous clouds, or dirt devils moving slowly across the landscape. Visitors will be able to see the vast range of Burr’s impressive production as well as get up close to inspect individual prints with a magnifying glass.” 

For high-resolution imagery and to request interviews, please contact the Communications Office at press@phxart.org. 

About the Exhibition

The inaugural installation of the James K. Ballinger Wing, an initiative honoring the historic collections of Phoenix Art Museum and the visionary leadership of Director Emeritus James K. Ballinger, was made possible by generous gifts from the Virginia M. Ullman Foundation and the Kemper & Ethel Marley Foundation. Additional support was provided by the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Foundation, Cathie Lemon, the Men’s Arts Council, and Harry and Rose Papp. 

George Elbert Burr: The Desert Etchings is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by Olga Viso, the Selig Family Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs.

All exhibitions at Phoenix Art Museum are underwritten by the Phoenix Art Museum Exhibition Excellence Fund, founded by The Opatrny Family Foundation with additional major support provided by Joan Cremin. 

Entrance into George Elbert Burr: The Desert Etchings  is included in general admission for the public. Admission is free for Museum Members and youth aged 5 and younger. Visitors may also enjoy reduced admission to the exhibition during voluntary-donation times on Wednesdays from 3 – 8 pm, made possible by SRP and City of Phoenix, and First Fridays from 5 – 8 pm, made possible by APS and Lexus, with additional support from Arizona Community Foundation. For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) has engaged millions of visitors with the art of our region and world. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, PhxArt creates spaces of exchange and belonging for all audiences through dynamic exhibitions, collections, and experiences with art. Each year, 300,000 guests on average engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 21,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern, and contemporary art and fashion, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson. PhxArt also presents live performances, outstanding examples of global cinema, arts-education programs and workshops, a monthly live-music series, and more for the community. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

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PHOENIX (July 2, 2025) – Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) announces the appointment of two new curators: Colin Pearson as the institution’s Curator for Asian Art and Dr. JoAnna Reyes as its new Adjunct Curator for Art of the Americas. Reyes’ role is a collaborative appointment between Phoenix Art Museum and the School of Art in Arizona State University’s (ASU) Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. In their respective roles, Pearson will develop exhibitions that draw from and highlight the Museum’s expansive Asian art collection, and Reyes will curate exhibitions across the Museum’s American, Western American, Latin American, and Spanish Colonial art collections. Both Pearson and Reyes assume their roles effective immediately. 

“We are thrilled to welcome Colin Pearson and JoAnna Reyes to the outstanding curatorial team at Phoenix Art Museum,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Museum’s Sybil Harrington Director and CEO. “Both Colin and JoAnna have deep expertise and significant experience within their respective fields and bring fresh, innovative perspectives to the presentation of the PhxArt Collection’s rich holdings. We are excited to see how their exhibitions engage and educate our audiences in new ways, reaffirming the Museum’s role as a space of belonging that reflects the breadth of experiences represented across our community.”

“I am both excited and humbled to be appointed as Phoenix Art Museum’s third curator of Asian art, and I look forward to sharing this incredibly rich collection with audiences in a variety of new ways,” said Pearson. “I feel passionately that the physical distance between Arizona and the places where these wonderful artworks originate does not need to be a barrier to the appreciation of their beauty. By approaching the collection with an open mind, I seek to help audiences discover what makes the artistic traditions of Asia distinct, highlight the intercultural exchanges that have always connected us, and make Asian art accessible and relevant for the diverse and family-oriented audiences here in the Valley of the Sun.”

“I am excited to join the curatorial team at Phoenix Art Museum and explore the Museum’s incredible collection of art from across the Americas,” said Reyes. “By taking a hemispheric approach, I hope to create exhibitions that highlight the migrations, exchanges, and shared stories that have shaped the region, with the goal of sparking new conversations and understanding of the art of the Americas.”

About Colin Pearson

Colin Pearson assumes his new role as PhxArt’s Curator of Asian Art, bringing over a decade of experience curating collections of Asian artworks, ceramics, craft items, musical instruments, and ethnographic artifacts, with expertise on the effects of maritime and Silk Road trade routes on the arts of Tibet, China, and India. He previously served as the Museum’s adjunct curator of Asian art since 2024, overseeing the refresh of the Art of Asia galleries and curating exhibitions such as Chardi Kala: Rising Above Adversity, a presentation of Sikh artworks exploring the concept of unwavering optimism in the face of hardship. This year, Pearson will serve as coordinating curator for the Museum’s presentation of Radical Clay: Contemporary Women Artists from Japan, organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, and lead curator for the exhibition Flowers of the Punjab: Textiles of India and Beyond, both opening in September 2025.

In addition to his work at PhxArt, Pearson has collaborated on curatorial projects at Arizona State University (ASU) and catalogued a collection of nearly 200 textiles, artworks, and ethnographic objects for ASU’s Center for Asian Research. From 2020 to 2022, Pearson served as a curator for the Zayed National Museum in the United Arab Emirates, cultivating and sharing his extensive knowledge of ceramics and other export goods traded along overland and maritime routes from China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, and India. As a curator at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix from 2009 to 2020, Pearson organized special exhibitions of custom-inlaid guitars and Chinese antiquities. He also expanded the institution’s collection of instruments and artifacts from Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East, as well as instruments from Europe and North America. 

Pearson has delivered public talks and lectures on a wide range of topics relating to Asian art, including the musical and artistic cultures of Asia, connoisseurship and classification schemes, and the global legacies of cultural interactions throughout history. He earned his Bachelor of Music at California State University, Long Beach and his Master of Arts in Ethnomusicology from the University of California at Riverside. He is currently working toward his PhD in Asian Art History at Arizona State University.

About Dr. JoAnna Reyes

Dr. JoAnna Reyes’s collaborative appointment as the Adjunct Curator for Art of the Americas at Phoenix Art Museum and Assistant Professor of Art History and Museum Studies at Arizona State University (ASU) further deepens the collaboration between the leading art museum in the Southwest and one of the largest comprehensive arts programs at a public research university in the U.S. In her new role at PhxArt, Reyes will curate exhibitions across the Museum’s American, Western American, Latin American, and Spanish Colonial art collections, expanding opportunities for audiences to consider connections across borders, time periods, and cultures.

Reyes’ first curatorial project at the Museum will be a collection installation in the institution’s newly renovated Art of the Americas and Europe galleries, which are re-opening in November 2025. Drawing from the Museum’s Spanish Colonial and Latin American art collections, Reyes will highlight the traditions and innovations in the viceregal art of Latin America, and how artists of the period drew inspiration from Asian art objects and prints from Northern Europe to create innovative, sophisticated, and nuanced works imbued with traditional Indigenous techniques, Catholic devotional imagery, and new iconographies invented to honor local saints and miracles. The installation will also showcase contemporary works that exemplify how Latin American artists today reference this period in their practices. 

In addition to her curatorial work, this fall Reyes will teach an ASU art history seminar, located in the Museum’s Education building. Reyes will use the PhxArt collection and new North Wing collection galleries to focus on a period between the 15^th and 16^thcenturies often referred to as the Age of Discovery, when Europeans developed a growing fascination with collecting a wide array of antiquities, natural specimens, books, prints, drawings, paintings, and other projects, largely influenced by the exploration and colonization of the Americas. Students will examine the practices and theoretical frameworks that informed early modern collecting and how they evolved into contemporary museological contexts, particularly around topics of repatriation, restitution, and deaccessioning.

A specialist in the visual and material culture of viceregal Latin American and contemporary Chicana/o America, Reyes explores identity, art patronage, and how images and symbols, particularly from border regions, shape our understanding of place and culture. She developed the 2025 exhibition Agua es Vida at the Rio Salado Audubon Center and Samouraï: Armure du Guerrier (2011) at the musée du Quai Branly with the Barbier-Mueller Museum (Dallas), published an entry in Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500-1800 (Delmonico, 2022), and co-authored an article in Feminist Formations (John Hopkins University Press, 2022), among other ongoing writing and book projects. 

Reyes, who earned her PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles, worked at the Getty Research Institute and served as the curatorial assistant at LACMA (2013-2015) and Mellon Fellow (2016-2017). Previously, she worked at the Hispanic Society Museum and Library (NY) and the Barbier-Mueller Museum, and from 2016-2019, she served as the book review editor for Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies. 

About Phoenix Art Museum

Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) has engaged millions of visitors with the art and fashion of our region and world. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, PhxArt creates spaces of exchange and belonging for all audiences through dynamic exhibitions, collections, and art experiences. Each year, more than 250,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions, as well as the Museum’s collection of more than 21,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern, and contemporary art and fashion. The Museum also presents vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson and is home to The Gene and Cathy Lemon Art Research Library, The Thorne Miniature Rooms, The Ullman Center for the Art of Philip C. Curtis, and Arizona Costume Institute (ACI). For the community, PhxArt hosts lectures, live performances, outstanding examples of global cinema, arts-education workshops, family-focused programs, and more. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880. 

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PHOENIX (March 21, 2023) – This summer, Phoenix Art Museum will present William Herbert “Buck” Dunton: A Mainer Goes West, the Museum’s newest American art exhibition. Organized by Phoenix Art Museum and the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico, the exhibition features some of the most significant works by William Herbert “Buck” Dunton, a founder of the Taos Society of Artists—arguably the most important group to popularize real and idealized images of the American West. The exhibition considers Dunton’s upbringing in rural Maine and how his relationship with the natural world informed his depictions of the people and places of the western United States. It is accompanied by an installation of artworks from the Museum’s permanent collection created by many of Dunton’s peers who likewise transplanted to New Mexico, inspired by its natural beauty and diverse cultures. William Herbert “Buck” Dunton: A Mainer Goes West will be on view from June 17 through June 30, 2024, in the Art of the Americas galleries at Phoenix Art Museum.

“The Taos Society of Artists was critical to bringing southwestern imagery to the attention of a national audience,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “William Herbert ‘Buck’ Dunton: A Mainer Goes West features compelling works by one of the six founding members who, like so many of us, relocated to the Southwest. Dunton saw and depicted the region’s impressive landscapes and diverse cultures as someone experiencing a place for the first time. Placed in conversation with works by others who made New Mexico and the Southwest their chosen home, the exhibition demonstrates how this region has long been a significant source of inspiration and a center of artistic creation.”

Born in 1878, in Augusta, the state capital of Maine, Dunton initially trained and made a living as an illustrator. His work was featured in Harper’s Weekly, Collier’s, Woman’s Home Companion, Scribner’s, Cosmopolitan, and several other magazines, and he also illustrated many books, including several of Zane Grey’s classic cowboy stories. Dunton and his family relocated to Taos in 1914, and it was then that he turned to painting romanticized depictions of the geography and cultures of the Southwest. Throughout his career, Dunton exhibited works at the National Academy of Design, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the 1924 Venice Biennale, among other achievements.

Despite his contributions to American art, Dunton has received little attention beyond inclusion of his work in shows featuring the paintings of the Taos Society of Artists and in a 1984 monograph. William Herbert “Buck” Dunton: A Mainer Goes West presents many of the artist’s most significant paintings, and though intimate in size, the exhibition demonstrates how Dunton channeled his love of nature—which he developed while growing up in rural Maine—to portray subjects of the actual and mythical American West, including landscapes, scenes of animal life, and depictions of cowboys and cowgirls, vaqueros, and Indigenous communities. The exhibition is complemented by a selection of works by other Taos Society artists and drawn from the Museum’s collection. Titled The Muse of New Mexico, the installation presents works by Dunton’s peers and collaborators, who likewise drew inspiration from the Southwest (specifically New Mexico), choosing to live in the region either full time or seasonally. Together, A Mainer Goes West and The Muse of New Mexico shed light on the Southwest region’s long-standing reputation as a dynamic cultural and artistic ecosystem.

“A Mainer Goes West and its accompanying installation represent a unique opportunity for visitors to discover Dunton’s unlikely legacy while observing his work in relation to the output of other Taos Society artists,” said Betsy Fahlman, adjunct curator of American art at Phoenix Art Museum who co-curated the exhibition. “I hope that through viewing Dunton’s work, which has not been the focus of a major exhibition in more than 30 years, visitors can experience a fresh view of this significant artist’s accomplishments. As an outdoorsman, he appreciated not only the diversity of cultures in Taos but also the region’s abundant wildlife. Dunton’s lens was both realistic and romanticized, and he realized that the West that so inspired him began to disappear in his lifetime.”

William Herbert “Buck” Dunton: A Mainer Goes West is accompanied by a scholarly catalogue featuring essays by exhibition curators Michael K. Komanecky, former Phoenix Art Museum chief curator, who chronicles Dunton’s childhood in rural Maine, and Betsy Fahlman, adjunct curator of American art at Phoenix Art Museum, who examines Dunton’s depictions of women in the American West. The exhibition is on view now at the Harwood Museum through May 21, 2023.

About the Exhibition
William Herbert “Buck” Dunton: A Mainer Goes West is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and the Harwood Museum of Art. It is guest curated by Michael K. Komanecky, Independent Curator and Art Historian, and Betsy Fahlman, Adjunct Curator of American Art, Phoenix Art Museum, with additional curation by Nicole Dial-Kay, Harwood Curator of Exhibitions and Collections. The exhibition’s presentation at Phoenix Art Museum is made possible through the generosity of Supporting Sponsors Men’s Arts Council and Carl and Marilynn Thoma, with additional support from Kimpton Hotel Palomar. For more information, click here.

Admission is free for Museum Members; and youth aged 5 and younger; and Maricopa County Community Colleges students. Entrance into the exhibition is included in general admission for the public. Visitors may also enjoy reduced admission to the exhibition during voluntary-donation times on Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm, made possible by SRP and supported in part through the generosity of the Angela and Leonard Singer Endowment for Performing Arts. For a full breakdown of general-admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.

High-resolution photography can be downloaded here. To request interviews, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2117 or samantha.santos@phxart.org.

About Phoenix Art Museum
Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 300,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

About Harwood Museum of Art
The Harwood Museum of Art is an international destination visited by tens of thousands of visitors each year. Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, and the second oldest museum in New Mexico, the Harwood celebrates Taos’ artistic legacy, cultivates current connections through art, and inspires a creative future. Art and education have been the soul of the Harwood experience from its beginnings in 1916, when Burt and Lucy Harwood first purchased the property at the end of historic Ledoux Street, to the creation of the Harwood Foundation in 1923 and continuing to the present day. The 1935 Deed of Conveyance, which gifted Lucy’s Harwood Foundation to the University of New Mexico, stated that the property would be an educational, cultural, and art center in connection with the University. The Harwood Museum of Art is currently home to the world-famous Agnes Martin Gallery and a collection with more than 6,500 objects representing 795 artists. The Harwood regularly exhibits works from the Taos region’s historic Native American and Hispano artists, the Taos Society of Artists, and the Taos Moderns, as well as living artists creating art in the Taos region. Housed in a fully restored, adobe residence which is more than 100 years old, the Harwood Museum of Art is registered with both the National Register of Historic Places and the New Mexico Register of Cultural Properties.

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PHOENIX (October 12, 2021) – Phoenix Art Museum has been named the recipient of a $240,746 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the first in the institution’s recent history since 2012. The award provides vital support for the institution’s upcoming special-engagement exhibition Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West, the first major exhibition of Western American art organized by the Museum since The West Select in 2014. The grant also supports an accompanying exhibition publication that adds contemporary voices to existing scholarship on mining-related art.

“Phoenix Art Museum is deeply grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for this generous grant—the largest the Museum has received from the NEH in our institution’s history,” said Mark Koenig, the Interim Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “With this funding, the Museum will be able to share with Arizona audiences a groundbreaking view on the history of the art of mining in our region through Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West, which offers a nuanced view into how artists over the past 100 years have depicted mining scenes and reflected society’s evolving perspectives on the industry’s impact on western U.S. landscapes.”

Opening on November 7, 2021 in Steele Gallery, the premiere exhibition space at Phoenix Art Museum, Landscapes of Extraction explores the modern evolution of mining imagery through more than 65 paintings and prints, illuminating how artists have interpreted and conveyed these landscapes of enterprise from the 1910s to the present. The exhibition begins with works from the early- to mid-20th century, when artists such as Lew Davis, Philip C. Curtis, Paul Sample, and Louise Emerson Ronnebeck portrayed regional themes and industries in their work, inspired, in part, by New Deal programs during the 1930s and early 1940s. These historical paintings showcase images of open-pit mines and coal tipples, the towns that grew up around mines and were abandoned when they closed, and the miners and their families who lived, worked, and toiled in those environments. Contemporary works created into the 2010s stand in contrast by demonstrating how artists have, over time, become more attuned to the monumental impact that humans, technology, mining, and other industries have had on the natural world, with a number examining the ongoing legacy of pollution. Works by artists such as Edward Burtynsky, David Emitt Adams, Martin Stupich, and Robert Adams explore the environmental costs of our global reliance on mined materials, while a work by contemporary fine art photographer Cara Romero, an enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, illuminates the experiences of Indigenous peoples globally who have been displaced from traditional lands for oil pipelines and other mining ventures. The exhibition is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by Betsy Fahlman, PhD, the Museum’s adjunct curator of American art.

The $240,746 NEH grant was awarded to Phoenix Art Museum in support of the major exhibition as part of the American Rescue Plan that the U.S. Congress passed in March 2021. Since then, the NEH has been working to distribute the $135 million appropriated by Congress to cultural organizations and educational institutions adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

For more information on this recent NEH grant award, Phoenix Art Museum, and Landscapes of Extraction, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2105 or samantha.andreacchi@phxart.org.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Phoenix Art Museum has provided access to visual arts and educational programs in Arizona for nearly 60 years and is the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions are shown alongside the Museum’s permanent collection of more than 19,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents festivals, a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed to enlighten, entertain, and stimulate visitors of all ages. Visitors also enjoy vibrant photography exhibitions through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org or call 602.257.1880.

About the National Endowment for the Humanities

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at neh.gov.

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PHOENIX (September 21, 2021) –Phoenix Art Museum announces the reopening of The Ullman Center for the Art of Philip C. Curtis on the first floor of the Museum’s North Wing. The reinvigorated gallery will open on October 23, 2021 and is dedicated to featuring the works of Philip C. Curtis, the Arizona-based artist who founded the Phoenix Federal Art Center, the first iteration of Phoenix Art Museum. Beginning with Philip C. Curtis and the Landscapes of Arizona, rotating exhibitions in the gallery will continuously showcase paintings by the beloved artist in conversation with other works from across the Museum’s American art collection to foster greater understanding of and provide meaningful art-historical context to the Museum’s Curtis collection.

“Phoenix Art Museum is proud to re-open The Ullman Center to continue honoring the work of Philip C. Curtis,” said Mark Koenig, the Museum’s Interim Sybil Harrington Director and CEO. “The gallery will provide a unique opportunity for members of our community to discover more about one of our region’s most celebrated artists who played a crucial role in the Museum’s history. We are grateful to The Virginia M. Ullman Foundation and the Philip C. Curtis Charitable Trust for their support in reinvigorating this space.”

Originally created in 2001, just one year after the artist’s passing, The Ullman Center for the Art of Philip C. Curtis was designed to feature the works of Curtis while honoring his pivotal contribution in establishing Phoenix Art Museum. Beginning in 2017, the dedicated gallery was relocated to the second floor of the Museum’s North Wing to make space for a long-term loan of paintings from the London-based Schorr Collection. Since then, Curtis works have been on view continuously throughout the Museum, and this fall, the institution will re-open The Ullman Center in its original and permanent location on the first floor of the Museum’s North Wing.

Born in 1907 in Jackson, Michigan, Curtis began painting as a child after suffering a serious accident when he fell through the icy surface of a frozen lake. During his lengthy recovery period, he took comfort in sitting at his easel. Curtis eventually went on to study art at Albion College and, afterward, studied law at the University of Michigan before returning to art as a graduate student at Yale University. In 1937, President Roosevelt appointed Curtis to establish the Phoenix Federal Art Center, an early forerunner of Phoenix Art Museum, as part of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project. In 1939, Curtis left Arizona to also establish the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa.

Following his service with the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, D.C., part of his war service during World War II, Curtis returned to Arizona in 1947 and began to work full-time as an artist. Once Phoenix Art Museum opened in 1959, Curtis maintained a close relationship with the Museum he had helped to establish until his death in 2000. Today, the Museum retains more than 100 works by Curtis in its collection, including many donated by the artist himself. His paintings of self-described “gentle surrealism” focus on themes of loneliness, isolation, and magical realism.

Beginning October 23, 2021, Museum visitors will have the opportunity to experience Philip C. Curtis and the Landscapes of Arizona, the first exhibition in the newly re-opened Ullman Center. Although Curtis was not traditionally identified as a landscape artist, the exhibition includes a number of the artist’s interpretations of western landscapes, which will be displayed alongside works by Lew Davis, Ed Mell, and others. In this context, the fantastical elements of Curtis’s work are amplified and starkly contrast the realism of other featured paintings, providing the chance to contemplate how differently artists of the same region may interpret and portray similar scenes and vistas.

“It will be wonderful to see Philip Curtis’ cherished works in a familiar space and in conversation with other works from the Museum’s American art collection,” said Betsy Fahlman, PhD, the Museum’s adjunct curator of American art. “Through this first exhibition and others, our community will gain a deeper understanding and learn about the richer context of the Museum’s Curtis collection, an opportunity and a gallery for which we are very grateful.”

The reopening of The Ullman Center for the Art of Philip C. Curtis is made possible through the generosity of The Virginia M. Ullman Foundation and the Philip C. Curtis Charitable Trust. For more information on The Ullman Center and Phoenix Art Museum, contact the Museum’s Communications Office at samantha.andreacchi@phxart.org or 602.257.2105.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 300,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

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PHOENIX (June 2, 2021) –Phoenix Art Museum will premiere a new exhibition on November 7, 2021 that examines the history, impact, and art of mining in the western United States. Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West explores the evolution of the art of mining, featuring more than 65 works created from the 1910s through today that depict regional landscapes of enterprise and examine how mining has altered the natural environment on a spectacular scale. Organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by Betsy Fahlman, PhD, the institution’s adjunct curator of American art, Landscapes of Extraction will be the first major exhibition of Western American art at the Museum since The West Select presented in 2014.

“We are excited to present Landscapes of Extraction to our community,” said Tim Rodgers, PhD, the Museum’s Sybil Harrington Director and CEO. “The modern history of Arizona as a U.S. state is inextricably linked to the expansion of mining across the Southwest. The industry provided thousands of jobs and contributed to the expansion of our cities, but mining also contributed to the pollution of our environment and created health risks for workers and surrounding communities. In many ways, the exhibition traces that evolution of our understanding through art, beginning with WPA-era paintings that honored the grit of workers against the backdrop of the Depression, to Edward Burtynsky’s ecologically aware photographs of the lasting impact of mining on our world.”

Throughout modern history, the mining industry has transformed the American West, competing with the scenic landscape on its own terms. In the first half of the 20th century, large-scale and open pit mines across Arizona, California, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah dramatically altered the natural environment and dictated the lives of those who worked in them, with cyclical booms that provided employment for generations of families and economic crashes that often left ghost towns and mass unemployment in their wake. Over the decades, mining has continued to shape natural landscapes across the western United States, creating stunning views in their own right. Public knowledge on the destructive environmental and health effects of mines, however, has increased, revealing the vexed legacy of the industry.

Through more than 65 paintings and prints, Landscapes of Extraction explores the modern evolution of mining imagery, illuminating how artists have interpreted and conveyed these landscapes of enterprise from the 1910s to the present. The exhibition begins with works from the early- to mid-20th century, when artists such as Lew Davis, Philip C. Curtis, Paul Sample, and Louise Emerson Ronnebeck portrayed regional themes and industries in their work, inspired, in part, by New Deal programs during the 1930s and early 1940s. These paintings showcase images of open pit mines and coal tipples, the towns that grew up around mines and were abandoned when they closed, and the miners and their families who lived, worked, and toiled in those environments.

Contemporary works created into the 2010s stand in contrast by demonstrating how artists have, over time, become more attuned to the monumental impact that humans, technology, mining, and other industries have had on the natural world, with a number examining the ongoing legacy of pollution specifically. Works by artists such as Edward Burtynsky, whose work was featured in a survey exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum in 2016, as well as those by David Emitt Adams, Martin Stupich, and Robert Adams, explore the environmental costs of our global reliance on mined materials. The exhibition also includes a work by contemporary fine art photographer Cara Romero, an enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe who uses photography as a tool to resist Eurocentric narratives and spotlight the diversity of living Indigenous peoples. Titled Oil Boom (2015), Romero’s photograph stands as commentary on the experiences of Indigenous peoples globally who have been displaced from traditional lands for oil pipelines and other mining ventures, while also making a more universal statement about communities polluted by the industry.

“Landscapes of Extraction offers a panoramic view of the art of mining in the American West that truly spans an entire century of change,” said Betsy Fahlman, PhD, who curated the exhibition. “Through this nuanced framework, we can examine the way artists have reflected society’s shifting perspectives and understanding of both the benefits and the dangers of mining, illuminating how a powerful regional narrative has become a fundamental element of national identity, manifested in natural geographies on a vast scale.”

About the Exhibition

Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West will be on view from November 7, 2021 through March 6, 2022 in Steele Gallery at Phoenix Art Museum. The exhibition is organized by Phoenix Art Museum. It is made possible through the generosity of Men’s Arts Council, Freeport-McMoRan Foundation, and Ironwood Cancer & Research Centers, with additional support from the Museum’s Circles of Support and Museum Members. For details on the exhibition, visit phxart.org/exhibition/landscapes-of-extraction/.

This special-engagement exhibition is free for Museum Members; youth aged 5 and younger; and veterans and active-duty military and their families through the Military Access Program at Phoenix Art Museum (MAP@PAM), made possible through the generosity of Dr. Hong and Doris Ong, Nancy Hanley Eriksson, and Shamrock Foods Foundation. During voluntary-donation times on Wednesdays from 3 – 7 pm, made possible by SRP and supported in part through the generosity of the Angela and Leonard Singer Endowment for Performing Arts, and the first Friday of each month from 3 – 7 pm, general admission is pay what you wish, and admission to Landscapes of Extraction is $5. For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.

For high-resolution photography, click here. To request interviews, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2105 or samantha.andreacchi@phxart.org.

About the Landscapes of Extraction Catalogue

Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West will be accompanied by an exhibition catalogue published by Hirmer Publishers (New York and Berlin). While the exhibition highlights the first half of the 20th century, the accompanying scholarly and fully illustrated catalogue will explore mining imagery from the mid-19th through the turn of the 20th century, including photographs of mining communities taken by photographers working for the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and 1940s and those by the Office of War Information taken during World War II. An essay on large-scale coal mining in Pennsylvania has strong parallels with what transpired in the West. The publication also includes an essay on the ways in which contemporary artists are investigating the environmental legacy of mining through their work. Contributors will include Barbara L. Jones, Chief Curator of the Westmoreland Museum of Art in Greensburg, PA; James R. Swensen, Associate Professor of Art History at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT;  and William L. Fox, Director of the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, NV. The publication will be edited by exhibition curator Betsy Fahlman, PhD, Adjunct Curator of American Art at Phoenix Art Museum and Professor of Art History at Arizona State University.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 350,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

The post Phoenix Art Museum explores history and art of mining in the American West in upcoming exhibition appeared first on Phoenix Art Museum.

PHOENIX (December 16, 2020) – From January 2 through April 25, 2021, Phoenix Art Museum will present a new selection of long-term loans in the exhibition Out of Print: Innovations of 19^th– and 20^th-Century Printmaking from the Collection of Phoenix Art Museum and the Schorr Collection. Featuring more than 50 individual works spanning 200 years by both European and American artists, the exhibition will feature some of the most revered names in art history, including Paul Cézanne, Edvard Munch, Paul Klee, Louise Nevelson, Robert Rauschenberg, and many others. Out of Print includes long-term loans from the U.K.-based Schorr Collection, amassed by collectors David and Hannah Lewis, who previously lent a number of Old-Master paintings to the Museum beginning in 2017. The exhibition will also showcase works from the Museum’s own American and European art collections to reveal the 19^th-century rebirth of printmaking as an art form, while underscoring the important contributions and role of women artists in that history.

“We are excited to present works on paper from the renowned Schorr Collection—all of which will be on view in Arizona for the first time—to our audiences in the upcoming exhibition Out of Print: Innovations of 19^th– and 20^th-Century Printmaking from the Collection of Phoenix Art Museum and the Schorr Collection,” said Tim Rodgers, PhD, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “We are grateful to the Lewis family, who established the Schorr Collection more than four decades ago with the goal of increasing access to Old-Master paintings and unique works of European art, including these prints. In addition, we thank our generous local donors who have entrusted outstanding works of American and European art to Phoenix Art Museum, many of which will be placed in conversation with works from the Schorr Collection beginning this January.”

In 2017, Phoenix Art Museum became the proud recipient of long-term loans from the Schorr Collection. Considered one of the most important collections of Old-Master and 19^th-century paintings in the world, the Schorr Collection was established by U.K.-based collectors David and Hannah Lewis and includes more than 400 works, including tender 15th-century devotional images, 19th-century French Impressionist landscapes, works by 20th-century Modern Masters, and a wide selection of prints. The collection is named in honor of the family of Hannah Lewis, many of whom were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust; Hannah Lewis is herself a Holocaust survivor. The Lewis family often loans artworks from their collection on a long-term basis to museums all over the world, including those in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, in an effort to increase access to these outstanding paintings, prints, and more across diverse cultures.

Presented in the Museum’s Harnett Gallery, Out of Print presents prints from the Schorr Collection, on view in Arizona for the first time, alongside works on paper from the Museum’s own collection of more than 20,000 objects to explore the history of printmaking in Europe and the United States, with a particular focus on the 19^th– and 20^th-centuries. Works on loan from the Schorr Collection include those by Paul Cézanne, Edvard Munch, Jean-François Millet, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and others, while prints from the Museum’s American and European art collections include those by Paul Klee, Louise Nevelson, Robert Rauschenberg, Käthe Kollwitz, Mary Cassatt, and more, many of which have never before been exhibited. The dialogue between these collections will help to broaden viewers’ understanding of the history of printmaking, highlighting its transformation from a utilitarian process into a form of artistic expression.

“The first mass-produced metal prints and woodcut prints on paper originated in the 15th century in Germany, and the process was considered a reproductive art form to bring art to the widest possible audience through early devotional woodcuts, playing cards, books, and engraved plates that were collected and shared among the masses,” said Rachel Sadvary Zebro, assistant curator at Phoenix Art Museum who curated Out of Print. “Then in the 19th century, avant-garde artists reclaimed the process of printmaking as they openly rejected academic, classical styles of painting. By creating original printed designs and compositions with formal, distinctive qualities similar to paintings and drawings, these artists, building upon earlier generations of printmakers, made printmaking into a legitimate form of art itself.”

In addition to exploring the evolution of printmaking, Out of Print also underscores the role women artists have played in that history, particularly over the past two centuries. The majority of works by American artists in the exhibition were created by women, including Käthe Kollwitz, Clare Leighton, Lee Bontecou, and Isabel Bishop. Out of Print also features work by Mary Nimmo Moran, the wife of Hudson River School painter and printmaker Thomas Moran, who began her work in printmaking as a hobby while she traveled across the United States with her husband as he painted vast American landscapes. The exhibition also features works by Mary Cassatt, who made her first prints in the late 1870s. Despite the often placid, domestic nature of her subjects, Cassatt, who was invited to join the Impressionist group by Edgar Degas, was fearless in her approach to printmaking, experimenting with a wide variety of materials to create stunning color prints of technical mastery.

Out of Print culminates with etchings and lithographs by contemporary artists such as Maria Baca, Raymond Saunders, and Fritz Scholder. By including these works alongside historical examples, the exhibition illuminates how the art of printmaking continues to evolve into the present day.

About the Exhibition

Out of Print: Innovations of 19^th– and 20^th-Century Printmaking from the Collection of Phoenix Art Museum and the Schorr Collection will be on view from January 2 through April 25, 2021 in the Lila and Joel Harnett Gallery. It is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and was made possible through the generosity of David and Hannah Lewis. The long-term loan of the Schorr Collection was made possible through the generous support of Friends of European Art, a former support group of Phoenix Art Museum; Nancy R. Hanley Eriksson; and Mary and Bill Way. For more information visit phxart.org/exhibition/out-of-print/.

Admission is free for Museum Members; veterans and active-duty military; and youth 5 and younger. Entrance to the exhibition is included in general admission for the general public. During voluntary-donation times, the exhibition is offered to the general public with pay-what-you-wish admission. Voluntary-donation times include Wednesdays from 3 – 7 pm and the first Friday of each month from 3 – 7 pm. For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, seephxart.org/visit/.

To request more information, interviews, and high-resolution photography, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.307.2003 or samantha.andreacchi@phxart.org.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 300,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

The post Phoenix Art Museum presents 19th- and 20th-century prints by Cézanne, Munch, Rauschenberg, and more, on view for the first time in Arizona appeared first on Phoenix Art Museum.

PHOENIX (November 12, 2018) – Organized by Phoenix Art Museum, Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist is the first survey of the obscure American modernist painter in more than 23 years. Although she painted conventional landscapes and portraits, Pelton (1881–1961) is most celebrated for her abstract compositions that reflect her interest in esoteric subjects, including numerology and Agni Yoga with its principal focus on fire as a guiding force. The exhibition of more than 40 works from various private and museum collections, including the permanent collection Phoenix Art Museum, sheds light on Pelton’s artistic contributions to American modernism, a movement more commonly associated with artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) in the Southwest and Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) in New England. Furthermore, Pelton’s interest in spirituality and abstraction links her to a larger international movement that is only now being properly studied and contextualized. Desert Transcendentalist represents a fascinating reexamination of an overlooked female artist and her rightful place within the canon of modern and contemporary art history. After its premiere at Phoenix Art Museum, the exhibition will travel to the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, and the Palm Springs Art Museum in California. 

“We are delighted to share Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist with our community and other communities across the United States,” said Amada Cruz, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “This exhibition highlights an extraordinary painter who was under-recognized in her lifetime, and we look forward to presenting Pelton’s unique and ethereal works to our guests.”

Born to American parents in Stuttgart, Germany, Pelton and her family briefly lived in Basel, Switzerland, before returning to the United States in 1888. A graduate of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, she exhibited in the Armory Show of 1913, yet her early abstractions didn’t begin until the mid-1920s in New York.

Intentionally moving away from the mainstream arts community, Pelton eventually settled in Cathedral City, California in 1932. Newspaper journalists sometimes compared her with Georgia O’Keeffe, who was six years her junior, as both artists studied with Arthur Wesley Dow in Massachusetts and both shared an affinity toward the landscapes of the Southwest. Pelton painted conventional desert landscapes and portraits to make a living, but she continued to hone her symbolic abstractions throughout her career. It was her abstract studies of earth and light and biomorphic compositions of delicate veils, shimmering stars, and atmospheric horizon lines that would eventually distinguish her body of work. Relatively unknown during her lifetime, Pelton and her work have remained underrepresented within the field of American art until today.

“We are very excited to present Agnes Pelton to our guests,” said Gilbert Vicario, the Selig Family Chief Curator at Phoenix Art Museum. “Almost nine decades since Agnes settled in Cathedral City, we are still laying the groundwork for a greater understanding of her contribution to American modernism and abstraction, while embracing an appreciation of her work by a new generation of contemporary artists.”

In addition to exploring the artist’s contributions to American Modernism, Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist also examines her practice against a broader, international framework of artists who worked with spiritual and esoteric abstraction, including the occultist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891), Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), and Hilma af Klint (1862–1944).

“The story of Agnes Pelton is one that exemplifies the need for our current revisionist model of art history,” said Erika Doss, PhD, professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame. “She was a single woman who didn’t have strong connections to the elite art markets of her time, yet throughout her life, she maintained a commitment to honing her abstract paintings, making a significant contribution to the evolution of American modernist painting.”

Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist is accompanied by a fully illustrated exhibition catalogue edited by Vicario, the organizing curator of the exhibition. The publication includes contributions from Elizabeth Armstrong, Director, Palm Springs Museum of Art; Michael Zakian, PhD, Director, Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University; Susan Aberth, PhD, Associate Professor of Art History, and Coordinator, Theology, Bard College; and Erika Doss, PhD, Professor, Department of American Studies, University of Notre Dame.

About the Exhibition

Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist will be on view from March 9 – September 8, 2019 in Steele Gallery. The exhibition is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by Gilbert Vicario, the Selig Family Chief Curator. It is presented by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. For more information, please visit phxart.org/exhibition/agnes-pelton.

This special-engagement exhibition is free for Museum Members, veterans and active-duty military and their families, and youth 5 and younger.
General admission:

$23 — Adults

$20 — Senior Citizens (Ages 65+)

$18 — Students (with ID)

$14 — Children (Ages 6–17)

All special-engagement exhibitions are included with general admission. During voluntary-donation, free-access times when general admission is pay-what-you-wish, admission to Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist is $5. Voluntary-donation, free-access times include Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm, the first Fridays of every month from 6 – 10 pm, and the second Sunday of each month from noon – 5 pm. For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, please see bit.ly/VisitPhxArt.

To request interviews and high-resolution photography, contact the Marketing and Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum, at 602.257.2105 or email margaree.bigler@phxart.org.

Related Programs

Circles Opening | Thursday, March 7, 2019, 6 pm  

Members of the Circles of Support of Phoenix Art Museum enjoy hors d’oeuvres, live music, and remarks from Gilbert Vicario, the Selig Family Chief Curator at Phoenix Art Museum, followed by an exclusive preview of the exhibition. Information available soon athttp://www.phxart.org/events/members.

First Friday | Friday, April 6, 2019, 6 pm – 10 pm

Join us on First Friday to experience Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist and in-gallery programs and performances inspired by the exhibition. This event is open to the public with voluntary-donation admission. See phxart.org/events/calendar for updates as information becomes available.

Discount Tire Family Free Sunday | Sunday, March 10, 2019, noon – 5 pm

Don’t miss Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist during voluntary-donation times on the second Sunday of each month, courtesy of Discount Tire, when admission to the special exhibition is only $5 to the general public! Guests will also enjoy exciting activities, scavenger hunts, live performances, story time, free tours, and more. See phxart.org/events/calendar for updates as information becomes available.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Phoenix Art Museum has provided access to visual arts and educational programs in Arizona for nearly 60 years and is the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions are shown alongside the Museum’s permanent collection of more than 19,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents festivals, a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed to enlighten, entertain, and stimulate visitors of all ages. Visitors also enjoy vibrant photography exhibitions through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visitphxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

The post Phoenix Art Museum presents largest survey to date of works by American modernist painter Agnes Pelton appeared first on Phoenix Art Museum.

              
PHOENIX (November 9, 2018) Phoenix Art Museum will present Wondrous Worlds: Art & Islam Through Time & Place, the first Islamic art exhibition at the Museum in more than two decades, from January 26 to May 26, 2019 in the Art of Asia galleries. The comprehensive exhibition, organized by the Newark Museum, will feature more than 100 artworks, including hand-written texts, ceramics, textiles, jewelry, photographs, and paintings, from across centuries and from nearly every continent, with the exception of Antarctica. Unlike previous national and international exhibitions on Islamic art, Wondrous Worlds is organized around the Five Pillars of Islam instead of geography, time period, or material, offering a fresh perspective on a vast artistic genre.

“We are delighted to host Wondrous Worlds: Art & Islam Through Time & Place,” said Amada Cruz, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “This exhibition offers a unique and comprehensive view of Islamic art, and we are excited to share these extraordinary works with our community.”

Curated by a team led by Katherine Anne Paul, PhD, curator of the arts of Asia at Newark Museum, the exhibition is structured around the Five Pillars of Islam, considered the core beliefs and practices of the world’s second largest religion. The Five Pillars are shahada (declaration of faith), salat (five daily prayers), zakat (almsgiving, or charity), sawm (fasting for Ramadan), and hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). Each section of the exhibition showcases a range of objects from various countries and centuries, including works created in the service of Islam by Muslim artists for Muslim patrons, items created for purposes that are not explicitly religious, and objects by non-Muslim artists created for both Muslim and non-Muslim patrons. Featured works include books of poetry, woven prayer rugs depicting paradise, inscribed coffee pots, game boards, and musical instruments. These traditional examples of Islamic art are displayed alongside contemporary works, such as calligraphic Sufi poems and sculpture, to demonstrate how artists today continue to explore the intersection between art and Islam.

“Islam connected cultures across the Middle East, the Mediterranean world and as far as China; through travel, trade and faith,” said Janet Baker, Curator of Asian Art. “Its impact on the intellectual and scientific worlds was vast and long-lasting.”

By presenting Islamic artworks that span centuries and continents within the context of the Five Pillars, Wondrous Worlds: Art & Islam Through Time & Place provides Museum guests with the opportunity to experience the living legacy of Islamic art through an in-depth examination of the global reach of Islam and its rich artistic tradition. Over the course of the exhibition, the Museum will present various public programs inspired by the exhibition, such as public lectures featuring local Muslim leaders and family-friendly activities in the galleries, to help build awareness and engage the community in conversation about Islam and Islamic art, now the world’s fastest growing religion.

About the Exhibition

Wondrous Worlds: Art & Islam Through Time & Place will be on view from January 26 through May 26 in the Art of Asia galleries. The exhibition is organized by the Newark Museum. Its premiere at Phoenix Art Museum is made possible through the generosity of donors to the Museum’s annual fund. For more details about the exhibition, please visit http://www.phxart.org/exhibition/WondrousWorlds.

This special engagement exhibition is free for Museum Members, and for veterans, active-duty, and retired military and youth aged 5 and under.

General admission:

$23 — Adults

$20 — Senior Citizens (Ages 65+)

$18 — Students (with ID)

$14 — Children (Ages 6-17)

All special exhibitions are included with general admission. During voluntary-donation, free-access times when general admission is free of charge, admission to Teotihuacan is $5. Voluntary donation, free-access times include Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm, the first Fridays of every month from 6 – 10 pm, and the second Sunday of each month from noon – 5pm. For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, please see bit.ly/VisitPhxArt.

To request interviews and high-resolution photography, contact the Marketing and Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2105 or margaree.bigler@phxart.org.

Exhibition Programs

Circles Opening |Thursday, January 24, 6 pm 

Members of the Circles of Support of Phoenix Art Museum enjoy hors d’oeuvres, live music, and remarks from Janet Baker, PhD, the Museum’s curator of Asian art, followed by an exclusive preview of the exhibition. See more information as it becomes available here.

Members Opening Reception

January 26, 9:30 am to noon

Members are invited to view the exhibition early and to enter through Greenbaum or Palette. Only Palette, Steele Gallery, and the Museum store will be open. See more information as it becomes available here.

First Friday | Friday, February 1, 6 – 10 pm

Join us on First Friday to experience Wondrous Worlds: Art & Islam Through Time & Place and in-gallery programs inspired by the exhibition. This event is open to the public with voluntary-donation admission. See phxart.org/events/calendar for event information.

Discount Tire Family Free Sunday

Sunday, February 10, noon – 5 pm

Don’t miss Wondrous Worlds: Art & Islam Through Time & Place during voluntary-donation times on the second Sunday of each month! Guests will also enjoy exciting activities, scavenger hunts, live performances, story time, free tours, and more. See phxart.org/events/calendar for updates as information becomes available.

Getting to Know American Muslims and Their Faith   |  Saturday March 2, 2 pm

See phxart.org/events/calendar for event information as it becomes available.

Family Workshop

Saturday March 30, 10:30 am and 2 pm

Youth ages 4 to 7 are welcome to participate from 10:30am to noon and ages 8 to 12 from 2 to 4pm in the Education Studio. See phxart.org/events/calendar for event and ticketing information.

Muslim Contributions to Civilization – Art and Architecture  |  Saturday April 6, 2 pm

See phxart.org/events/calendar for event information as it becomes available.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Phoenix Art Museum has provided access to visual arts and educational programs in Arizona for nearly 60 years and is the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions are shown alongside the Museum’s permanent collection of more than 19,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents festivals, a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed to enlighten, entertain, and stimulate visitors of all ages. Visitors also enjoy vibrant photography exhibitions through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visitphxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

The post Phoenix Art Museum presents an expansive exhibition of Islamic art from around the world and spanning a millennium appeared first on Phoenix Art Museum.

PHOENIX (June 8, 2018) – Beginning on July 7, Phoenix Art Museum presents In the Company of Women: Women Artists from the Collection, an exhibition of nearly 50 twentieth- and 21st-century artworks from the Museum’s holdings. In an era of such contemporary phenomena as the #MeToo movement, this exhibition showcases an array of styles and media, with works on view by Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe, Faith Ringgold, Erica Deeman, Daniela Rossell, and many others, as an engagement with feminist scholarship that, for decades, has aimed to provide a more complete history of artistic production. In the Company of Women creates a new context for some of the Museum’s most iconic pieces, prompting conversations about gender inequality, the systematic exclusion of women from mainstream art circles, and the idea that artistic production must be understood in the context of society at large. In the Company of Women also aims to encourage conversation about the presence of works by women in the Museum’s collections and exhibitions, as well as the institution’s commitment to proactively addressing these issues. The exhibition will open on Friday, July 6 at
6 pm for First Friday festivities, and will be on view July 7 through August 12 in the Museum’s Steele Gallery.

“We are excited to celebrate the iconic pieces featured in In the Company of Women,” said Amada Cruz, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “This exhibition casts these works in an engaging new light, reminding us that museums are meant to be a place where all perspectives are considered meaningful. We look forward to sharing these beloved works with new and seasoned visitors alike.”

In the Company of Women was inspired in part by the 1976 Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) exhibition Women Artists: 1550-1950, the first large-scale museum exhibition in the United States exclusively featuring women artists. Curated by renowned art historians Ann Sutherland Harris and Linda Nochlin, Women Artists was revolutionary in the way it utilized the museum setting to explore barriers that women artists have historically faced. For example, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, women were barred from studying the nude model, which formed the basis for academic training and representation, despite women’s bodies often serving as the objects of artistic representation and consumption.

Today, work by women artists makes up only 3-5% of major museum collections in the United States and Europe, and of 590 major exhibitions by nearly 70 institutions in the United States from 2007-2013, only 27% were devoted to women artists. In the Company of Women seeks to bring these facts to the forefront while also shedding light on how some of the Museum’s most beloved collection items are by women artists. Among them are Frida Kahlo’s The Suicide of Dorothy Hale, a graphic depiction of death that, in a similar vein to many of Kahlo’s famous self-portraits, demands that its viewer acknowledge a female subject in acute physical and psychological pain; Faith Ringgold’s The Bitter Nest, Part 1: Love in the School Yard, a narrative quilt that exemplifies the artist’s lifelong and fervent commitment to African-American history, civil rights, and the ideas of family and roots through quilt-making and genre painting; and Marguerite Zorach’s Deer in the Forest (1914), a recent acquisition of the Museum by an under-recognized painter who, in her time, was one of the earliest innovators of American modernist painting thanks to her use of intense color and dynamic composition.

“As Phoenix Art Museum’s curatorial department continues to expand and diversify its curatorial exhibition and collecting program, it is important to acknowledge that we are empowered as an institution to oversee and correct the gender imbalance in our programming in a deeply impactful way,” said Gilbert Vicario, the Selig Family Chief Curator.

“Exhibitions like In the Company of Women provide us with the opportunity to talk about reinforced assumptions that pervade everyday life, such as the idea that women are objects of representation rather than active producers of art and history, or the fact that the work of women is often presented in opposition to the ideas of creativity and high culture,” said Rachel Zebro, the Museum’s curatorial associate of modern and contemporary art, and the exhibition’s curator. “Art helps us to challenge these norms and expectations, and in using this series of familiar works from our own collection, we can share these ideas in a tangible way.”

Additionally, In the Company of Women calls attention to a number of the Museum’s recent solo exhibitions by women artists, including Valeska Soares, Betsy Schneider, Iris van Herpen, Sheila Pepe, Magdalena Fernández, Patricia Sannit, and Saskia Jordá. These instances of visibility for works by women artists provoke questions such as: What does the increase in institutional representation of women mean, and how will it be sustained? Why is it important? What is the impact on museums and audiences? In the Company of Women encourages visitors to contemplate this and future exhibitions from new angles, all in an effort to question and transform perspectives on what is considered great art, and why.

About the Exhibition

In the Company of Women will be on view from July 7 through August 12 in Steele Gallery. This exhibition is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and is made possible through the generosity of donors to the Museum’s annual fund. For more details about the exhibition, please visit phxart.org/exhibition/inthecompanyofwomen.

Admission is free for Museum Members; veterans, active-duty and retired military personnel, and their families; Maricopa Community College students, staff, and faculty (with ID); and youth aged 5 and under. Entrance to the exhibition is included in general admission for the general public. During voluntary-donation times, the exhibition is offered free to the general public. Voluntary-donation times include Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm, the first Fridays of every month from 6 – 10 pm, and the second weekend of each month (Saturday from 10am – 5pm and Sunday from Noon – 5pm). For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, see bit.ly/VisitPhxArt.

To request interviews and high-resolution photography, contact Phoenix Art Museum’s Marketing and Communications Office, at 602.257.2105 or email margaree.bigler@phxart.org.

Related Programs

First Friday

July 6 | 6 – 10 pm

Celebrate the special First-Friday exhibition preview of In the Company of Women on July 6! Experience performances and activities led by Phoenix-based women artists and groups, including:

• Live music by Las Chollas Peligrosas,

• Hands-on activity with Melissa Waddell,

• Subaquatic living installation by Allyson Yoder with live music by Malta,

• Sonic Textile durational performance by Kristen Miologos,

• Nerd Nite PHX,

• Women’s Social Club organized by DiRTYOGA,

• and more!

This is a free event open during the public during Pay-What-You-Wish hours at the Museum. Please check phxart.org/events/calendar for updates.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Phoenix Art Museum has provided access to visual arts and educational programs in Arizona for more than 50 years and is the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions are shown alongside the Museum’s permanent collection of more than 19,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents festivals, a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed to enlighten, entertain, and stimulate visitors of all ages. Visitors also enjoy vibrant photography exhibitions through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visitphxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

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