FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Springfield, MO. (December 14, 2022) – The Springfield Art Museum celebrates 95 years of service to our community in 2023 with a schedule of 20 new and ongoing exhibitions that are packed with local, regional, and international interest. Presenting sponsorship of the Museum’s 2023 exhibition season is generously provided by the Friends of the Springfield Art Museum, Inc.
New in 2023
Art In Motion (January 21, 2023 – July 9, 2023) – Collaborative exhibition guest curated by Missouri State University Museum Studies students utilizing objects from the Museum’s permanent collection that highlight ways in which artists portray movement or motion within their work.
Holding Space: Contemporary Enamel Vessels (April 7, 2023 – July 30, 2023) – This group exhibition will focus on the enamel process through an examination of the vessel form. Featuring a core body of work by local Springfield artist Sarah Perkins. Other featured artists include Beate Gegenwart, Tanya Crane, Harlan Butt, Helen Carnac, Jessica Calderwood, Kat Cole, Yi Chen, Barbara Minor, and the late June Schwarcz. Organized by Curator of Art Sarah Buhr, in collaboration with Sarah Perkins.
Blue on White (July 22, 2023 – December 3, 2023) – Collaborative exhibition guest curated by Missouri State University Museum Studies students utilizing objects from the Museum’s permanent collection that highlight the complex history of Chinese blue-white porcelain including its connection to Persia, the use of important Chinese symbols in its decoration, and its eventual cultural appropriation through imitative wares and exportation across Europe and North America.
Tradition Interrupted (August 19, 2023 – November 12, 2023) – A traveling international group exhibition that explores the methods used by artists to conflate contemporary ideas with traditional art and craft in a range of media, from rugs and mosaics to metalwork and ceramics. The eleven artists in the exhibition hail from around the world. Organized by Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA.
Jordan Eagles (September 23, 2023 – February 18, 2024) – A solo exhibition with New York-based artist Jordan Eagles. Eagles explores the “visual power, and cultural uses of blood” through a wide range of media. In recent years, Eagles has created a series utilizing human blood – sourced ethically from the LGBTQI+ community – to advocate for fair blood donation policies, anti-stigma, and equality. This exhibition will focus on Eagles’ work with queer blood and will feature the titular work Blood Mirror, a large resin sculpture made with 59 individual human blood donations from PrEP advocates, along with additional resin sculptures, film, and a textile work. The exhibit will also include key works from several of the artist’s series that connect American pop culture with queer blood including comic books, World War II propaganda posters, and Leonardo Da Vinci.
Spirit of Independence: Kent Bicentennial Portfolio (December 2, 2023 – March 24, 2024) – In anticipation of the 2024 Presidential election season, this exhibition re-engages with the central question posed to 12 American artists by the Kent Bicentennial Program in 1976, “What does independence mean to you?” The resulting portfolio - sponsored by the Lorillard Tobacco Company as a celebration of our country’s bicentennial year - presents twelve very different views of independence from the historical to the highly personal, and from the theoretical to the symbolic. This exhibition is pulled from the Museum’s permanent collection.
Collection Focus: Lithography (December 2, 2023 – March 24, 2024) – Printmaking comprises the single largest media in the Museum’s permanent collection. It was made a collection focus by the Museum’s first full-time paid director, Winslow Ames, in 1947, as a way to more affordably collect examples of work by European Old Masters. Every subsequent director has continued to support this endeavor, expanding to contemporary printmaking and beyond, resulting in a rich and varied collection. This exhibition will focus on the medium of lithography through a cross-section of work from the permanent collection and will include a wide range of artists, styles, eras, and nationalities.
Collection Focus: Bradi Barth (December 2, 2023 – August 4, 2024) – Bradi Barth (1922-2007) was a Swiss-born artist who created enigmatic and expressively realistic paintings in the technical tradition of 15th century Dutch masters, like Rogier Van der Weyden and Jan Van Eyck. She worked in craquelure, creating texture through a complicated layering of glazes and rich color. This exhibition features 13 paintings from the collection of Gertrude Vanderveer Spratlen which were gifted to the Museum in 1996. These works range from scenes of Christian iconography to characters of the Italian Commedia dell’arte like Pierrot and Columbine.
Collection Focus: Glenna Goodacre (December 2, 2023 – August 4, 2024) - Glenna Goodacre was one of just a few women who created large, commemorative sculptures in the United States in the later 20th century. She is perhaps most remembered for her Vietnam Women’s Memorial, dedicated to the 11,500 women who served in Vietnam as nurses, intelligence analysts, air traffic controllers, and in other roles. After first working as a painter, Goodacre transitioned full-time to sculpture and later began to focus extensively on work highlighting the Pueblo people. This exhibition features paintings and sculptures pulled from the Museum’s permanent collection.
Material Worlds of Antiquity (December 9, 2023 – June 16, 2024) – Collaborative exhibition guest curated by Missouri State University Egyptology students utilizing objects from the Museum’s permanent collection that focuses on the material properties of ancient objects, from the casting of bronze to the use of ceramic and glass.
Returning in 2023
All School Exhibition (March 4, 2023 – April 23, 2023) - The Museum’s longest running exhibition initiative, the All School Exhibition invites student artists from public, private, parochial, and home school cooperatives to exhibit outstanding artwork in our largest gallery space. This exhibit also reflects the work of the incredibly talented teachers in our community, many of whom are practicing artists themselves. Support for the All School Exhibition is generously provided by the George Deatz Family.
Missouri State University MFA Showcase (May 6 – 28, 2023) – This special exhibition features bodies of work produced by Missouri State University graduate students pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree in Visual Studies from the Art + Design Department.
Watercolor USA 2023 (June 10, 2023 – September 3, 2023) – This annual summer favorite returns with over $20,000 in cash prizes, artist materials, and possible Museum purchase awards available. This will be the 62nd showing of the very best in contemporary American watermedia, as judged by prolific watercolorist Keiko Tanabe, AWS, NWS, AIS, LPAPA.
Evergreen in 2023
New works from American artists from the 18th Century onward will continue to rotate quarterly into Creating an American Identity, our semi-permanent exhibition of our permanent collection that focuses on the ways in which artists respond to and reveal our cultural identity as Americans. This exhibition includes a selection of 75+ works from as wide an array of artistic voices as possible with our current collection including even more works by women, people of color, Indigenous peoples, and LGBTQ+ communities.
Selections from the Museum's Asian Art collection are currently installed in our Hartman Gallery (through January 8, 2023). The Survey of Asian Art is sponsored by The Lee Family – Albert, Alia, Kieran, and Braedan. Selections from the Museum’s Ceramics collection are currently installed in our Musgrave Gallery. Patrons can also enjoy installation pieces like Anne Lindberg’s titled sky and Dale Chihuly’s Autumn Persian and Feather Chandelier, year-round. The Museum’s grounds also include outdoor sculptures including works by John Henry and Ernest Trova.
Continuing from 2022
Humanities: Vol. 2 (Through February 12, 2023) – This exhibition started with a series of questions: What does our collection mean to Springfieldians? Does our collection mean anything to Springfieldians? How would we know? To seek answers to these questions, our Curator of Art invited three local artists in different disciplines to tour the Museum’s vaults and see what connections might exist between the collection and our community. These tours resulted in an exhibition that pairs objects from the Museum’s permanent collection, as chosen by poet Kate Murr, musician Jin J X, and dancer Sarah Wilcoxon, with original work created in their own mediums, inspired by the chosen objects. Lead support for Humanities, Vol. 2 is generously provided by the Melinda J. McDaniel Charitable Trust, UW, Bank of America, N.A., Trustees.
Rodney Frew (Through March 19, 2023) – This exhibition features work by longtime local artist and art educator Rodney Frew. Frew taught at Missouri State University for 34 years, retiring with emeritus status. He exhibited his work often at the Museum, as well as in national and international exhibitions. The Museum was gifted a large body of work by the artist’s son, Morgan Frew, in 2019. This exhibition features many of these newly donated works in context with additional work by Rodney Frew from the Museum’s collection. Financial assistance for this exhibition has been made possible with public support from the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.
Frieda Logan: Swap Meet (Through March 19, 2023) – Frieda Logan was a local artist who was active in the Springfield Visual Arts Alliance, the Springfield Art Museum’s annual Watercolor USA exhibition, and the Visual Arts Committee for Springfield Public Schools. Prior to retiring in Springfield, Logan managed a freelance career in Kansas City creating commercial illustrations for Macy’s Department Store and Ray’s Advertising. This exhibition features a series of paintings, gifted by Logan to the Museum in 2004, featuring heartfelt depictions of daily life in the Midwest during the 1980s. Financial assistance for this exhibition has been made possible with public support from the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.
Lyrical Abstraction (Through March 19, 2023) – In America in the 1960s and 70s, a group of artists including Dan Christensen, Larry Poons, Robert Natkin, and Sam Francis sought to expand the idea of abstract painting and to reassert the importance of the formal elements of line and color. These artists were dubbed “lyrical abstractionists” and their work was characterized by loose gestural brushstrokes, acrylic staining, occasional imagery, rich color, and other painterly techniques. This exhibit features work by lyrical abstract artists in the Museum’s permanent collection including Poons, Natkin, Francis, Marlene Mueller, and Sharon Jesik, among others. Financial assistance for this exhibition has been made possible with public support from the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.
Plan to join us for any, or all, of these exciting exhibits during 2023 at the Springfield Art Museum, located at 1111 East Brookside Drive. Admission is always free. Donations are gratefully accepted.
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The Springfield Art Museum is Springfield, Missouri’s oldest cultural institution, founded in 1928. A department of the City of Springfield, the Museum invites you to connect with the world, your community, and yourself through active engagement with art objects. For more information, please visit www.sgfmuseum.org or contact Joshua Best, Museum Affairs Officer at (417) 874-2859 or jbest@springfieldmo.gov.