Two new Sheldon Museum of Art exhibitions pay homage to traditions established when the support organization that is now the Sheldon Art Association was founded in 1888.
Those exhibitions, “Building a Legacy Collection: A Survey of Invitational Acquisitions,” and “Shape Up! Visualizing the Geometric World,” show May 20 to July 31.
In the decades since May 1888, when 67 individuals formed a society of fine arts on the University of Nebraska campus, the stewards of the Sheldon’s collection have regularly organized invitational exhibitions featuring contemporary art. The museum’s first pieces of art were collected through its invitational exhibitions — which were offered from 1888 to 1966, and restarted in 2005.
“Building a Legacy Collection,” which presents selected works from the museum’s invitational exhibitions, demonstrates the enduring strength of Sheldon’s acquisitions that were once new and cutting-edge and are now firmly rooted in established canonical traditions. Invitational acquisitions have provided generations of students, faculty, and visitors the opportunity to study major works by artists including Philip Guston, Hans Hofmann, Edward Hopper, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Charles Sheeler and John Sloan.
The exhibition is closely related to “It Was Never Linear: Recent Painting,” the 2016 invitational that opened at Sheldon on May 6. “It was Never Linear” features recent works by 12 contemporary artists whose production demonstrates a primacy of the act of painting. Artists in “It Was Never Linear” are Robert Bordo, JoAnne Carson, Dawn Clements, Lois Dodd, Michelle Grabner, Josephine Halvorson, Loren Munk, Joyce Pensato, Colin Prahl, Peter Saul, Barbara Takenaga and Stanley Whitney.
“Shape Up,” the second exhibition opening May 20, is the 30th in the Sheldon Statewide series. Established in 1986, Sheldon Statewide is an annual traveling exhibition shown in communities across Nebraska. The show will visit seven communities during the 2016-2017 academic year.
“Shape Up” offers a framework for exploring the diverse and innovative ways artists use geometry to visualize the world.
For more information on Sheldon exhibits and events, click here.
