Albert Paley: Sculptures, Drawings, Graphics, and Decorative Arts

April 27 – July 23, 2002

Jenkins and Macey Galleries

This exhibition features the many diverse forms created during the last four decades by sculptor Albert Paley. From the most delicate jewelry to ornate vessels and candlesticks, from tree grates (large decorative grates for trees planted in a city environment) to large screens and plant stands, this exhibition features a broad selection of the imaginative and dynamic forms created by Paley.

Organized by Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts, Tallahassee, Florida

A Visual Diary: A Photographic Installation by Mary Ann Becker

March 16 – May 19, 2002

Perkins Gallery

This exhibition features the work of Tampa photographer Mary Ann Becker. During the last several years, she has split her time between Tampa and Paris. A Visual Diary combines text and black-and-white snapshots in a multi-media recreation of the impact of a time and place on an individual. Rather than a collection of carefully posed and composed tourist images, Becker’s collection captures glimpses of the natural intermingling of people and places.

Because of the importance of privacy to most French people, she takes her photographs quickly and from a variety of inconspicuous positions, never actually looking through the viewfinder. Her informal observations of places, now serving as memories, often lead viewers to incorporate the images into their own memory banks, as if they had traveled to these places rather than Becker. At the same time, the sheets of text, also representing Becker’s impressions of these people and places, are presented with a weight equal to that of the photographs, making viewers aware that the person behind the camera is just as important as the scene in front of it. Becker received her BFA from Wichita State University and her MFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

People’s Choice: Selections from the Permanent Collection

January 26 – May 12, 2002

Murray and Ledger Galleries

In an effort to give our visitors a more direct role in determining the artworks selected for display, we invited all visitors to the Museum to cast votes for their favorite artworks. Visitors were given access to images of approximately one-half of the Museum’s Permanent Collection; these images represented artworks currently in storage but available for exhibition. During the voting period, October 26, 2001 – January 13, 2002, visitors were asked to vote for as many as three artworks. The Curatorial Department then tallied the votes and installed the most frequently selected artworks, along with any statements made by voters that explained their attraction to their selections.

Wild Life: The Other Tradition

January 12 – April 16, 2002

Dorothy Jenkins and Emily S. Macey Galleries

Organized by the Polk Museum of Art, Wild Life: The Other Tradition presents 47 works by 19 contemporary artists from across the country who use animals as the focus of many of their artworks. Prompted by the proliferation of uncreative scenes of flocks of birds, deer, and (in Florida) manatees in wildlife art expositions, the Museum has selected artworks that reflect a variety of creative approaches to animals as the subject: the intense beauty of works by Alfredo Arreguin, Melissa Miller, Joseph Raffael, Tom Uttech, and John Alexander; the whimsical imagery of Sally Chandler, Roy De Forest, Isabel Sim Hamilton, Joseph Peragine, and Robert Sholties; the dramatic scenes by David Bates, Gaylen Hansen, Alan Loehle, and Mark Messersmith; and the investigation of spiritual, intellectual, and emotional interconnections in the work of Julie Comnick, Don Eddy, Karen Halt, Robert McCauley, and Kay Miller. The common theme in these works is the identification of some of humankind’s most basic instincts within the behavior and habitat of the animal kingdom.

Color 101: The Psychological Effects of Color

December 22, 2001 – March 10, 2002

Perkins Gallery

Continuing its effort to consider artworks in thought provoking contexts, the Museum has brought together a group of works from its permanent collection to investigate the impact of color choices made by artists. The exhibition begins with a discussion of the color theories used by artists to generate specific effects. After exploring these basic concepts using a combination of artworks and visual aids visitors are able to study the impact of these ideas through a wide range of artworks, including paintings, prints, and ceramics.

Accompanying many artworks are digitally altered reproductions that enhance the viewer’s understanding of the choices made by the artists. Among the works included in this exhibition are Keith Sonnier’s Meridian Codex: Print One, Ed Paschke’s Tampa Series #10 and Tampa Series #22, Margaret Tolbert’s Juniper Springs, and James Rosenquist’s After Berlin.

Thirty-Two Aspects of Women: 19th Century Japanese Woodblock Prints

October 6, 2001 – January 20, 2002

Murray and Ledger Galleries

During the Edo Period (1603-1867) the merchant class in Japan attained new prominence and wealth. This new class demanded objects that would mirror their own interests, everything from current events to fashion and entertainment. It was at this time that ukiyo-e was invented. The word ukiyo is a Buddhist term that means “the floating world.” This referred to our life span, the time that we “float” on earth. The word “e” refers to a picture or drawing. Ukiyo-e artists created images for the common people by focusing on subjects taken from daily life, assuming, in a sense, the role of the mass media for Japanese communities.

The last, and perhaps greatest, master of ukiyo-e was Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. His combination of traditional Japanese subject matter with western techniques led to the creation of his most popular work. In 1888 he completed Thirty-Two Aspects of Women, revealing his renowned capacity for portraying the complexity of women rather than portraying them as mere objects for the male gaze. This series traces the “history” and fashion of women during the century leading up to its printing. The “aspects” of women are humorously compared with the thirty-two identifying features of the Buddha. Colorful, beautiful, and fun, these prints are an extraordinary glimpse of Japanese art and culture.

A Western View of an Eastern Style: Japanese Prints, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Western Aesthetics

October 20 – December 16, 2001

Perkins Gallery

This exhibition features a selection of Japanese prints from the permanent collection of the Amarillo Museum of Art. Though remarkable in and of themselves, the prints will also serve as a discussion point about the influence of 19th century Japanese aesthetics on the development of Western art, specifically the style of Frank Lloyd Wright. The prints made an impact on Wright in two ways: first as an illustration of some of the finest Japanese architecture; and second as a demonstration of the Japanese ability to reorganize natural views into clear, geometrically arranged patterns of color. This exhibition will be on display during the annual Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy conference that will be held at Florida Southern College

Heavy Metal

December 18, 2010 – April 17, 2011

Ledger and Murray Galleries

Although it is not the easiest material to work with, metal is a valuable material for artists seeking a durable, rigid and slick result. Polk Museum of Art is home to an assortment of artworks assembled, poured and shaped by this heavy material. This exhibition will feature some of the finer examples of those objects.

The Serie Print Project: Serigraphs from Coronado Studio

July 28 – October 21, 2001

Perkins Gallery

The Serie Project, Inc. is a non-profit Latino arts organization located in Austin, Texas that produces, promotes, and exhibits serigraphs created by established and emerging artists. It strives to emphasize the cultural diversity of the visual arts in Austin and Texas while developing awareness of Latino art and its importance in our communities.

The Serie Print Project’s mission is to promote national and international artists from various professional levels and ethnic backgrounds. Austin artist Sam Coronado created the Project in 1993. A Master Printer works with the artists to assist and guide the production of their editions. The Polk Museum of Art will present an exhibition of 30 out of the nearly 120 serigraphs created at Coronado Studio during the last eight years. These works exemplify the quality and diversity of all the works produced within The Serie Print Project.

Fresh Art: Recent Acquisitions by Polk Museum of Art

July 7 – September 30, 2001

Murray and Ledger Galleries

This exhibition will highlight some of the artworks collected by the Polk Museum of Art during the last two years. Included in the exhibition will be works by Paul Brach, Robert Mapplethorpe, Miriam Schapiro, and Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Outside the Box: Eleven International MADI Artists featuring Carmelo Arden Quin and Volf Roitman from the Masterson and Lenherr Collections

August 18 – October 21, 2001

Dorothy Jenkins Gallery

The Polk Museum of Art has organized the first American museum exhibition of the work of the MADI movement. This exhibition presents an intensive investigation of one of the most enduring art movements today. MADI began in Argentina in the early 1940s under the leadership of Carmelo Arden Quin. Originally from Uruguay, Arden Quin was a leading young member of the Argentinian Avant Garde in the late 1930s and early 1940s, working most notably with Joaquín Torres-García. He was particularly attracted to Torres-García’s movable toys, and began breaking with rectangular forms. MADI was originally part of the Latin American concrete art movements that were the most innovative movements of the 1940s. However, MADI’s ingenuity and sense of fun finally led Arden Quin and the MADI artists to separate themselves from the more rigid fundamentals adhered to by most other concrete artists. Relying on geometric forms rather than organic or even abstracted forms, MADI artists created (and continue to create) paintings that assert their own objecthood as frames were eliminated and canvases were reshaped to suit the artists’ aesthetic desires, years before the works of Ellsworth Kelley and Frank Stella that defined geometric abstraction during the 1960s.

After a few years of working with his small MADI group, Arden Quin moved to Paris where he met artists such as Hans Arp, Francis Picabia, and Nicolas de Staël. MADI was rekindled when Arden Quin met Volf Roitman in 1951. Together they founded the MADI Research and Study Center, an experimental, loosely-formed association of artists and writers that has, over the years, evolved into MADI International, a movement which today consists of more than 60 members working on four continents.

The exhibition will focus primarily on the works of Arden Quin and Roitman from the collections of Bill and Dorothy Masterson of Dallas and Mark and Scarlett Lenherr of London. Also featured are the works of nine artists who represent the geographic, stylistic, and age diversity that defines the movement. Artists from France, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States are included. The exhibition will open at Polk Museum of Art on August 18, 2001 and run through October 21. It will then travel to the Gulf Coast Museum of Art in Largo where it will be on display from November 30, 2001 through January 27, 2002.

The Order of Disarrangement: Very Recent Rocky Bridges

August 18 – October 21, 2001

Emily S. Macey Gallery

In the midst of a three-year grant awarded by the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, Tarpon Springs native Rocky Bridges has produced, during two intense periods of work, his most thoughtful and aesthetically dynamic artworks to date. Proceeding from the idea that clarity can be found within apparently random combinations of things and ideas, Bridges creates assemblages, paintings, and collages that are unexpectedly complete and harmonious even as they make us reach for the conception that unites them.

As part of his grant award, Bridges will spend the summers of 2000-2002 immersing himself in the production of art in Miami. Culling from the work he has produced during his first two summers, the Polk Museum of Art is presenting a selection of Bridges’ work that reveals the impact that the South Florida environment has had on his style. The scale of his work has increased significantly due in no small part to the roomy studio he has used. By spending more of his time working inside, he has also been able to incorporate more fragile materials into his work. Most subtle, yet perhaps most significant, have been the alterations in Bridges’ compositions and use of color. The light-colored skies, clear water, and host of exotic cultural debris have brought an airiness to his work that elevates it to a transcendental plane even as it continues to touch on the assemblage style of Robert Rauschenberg.

Rocky Bridges is currently a faculty member at the Harrison Center for the Arts in Lakeland. He is a graduate of The Cooper Union in New York.

Theodore Waddell: A Retrospective

June 9 – August 12, 2001

Dorothy Jenkins and Emily S. Macey Galleries

This exhibition, organized by the Yellowstone Art Museum, presents approximately forty-five paintings, works on paper, and sculptures by Montana rancher and artist, Theodore Waddell. Waddell creates images that are both personal and authentic without succumbing to the nostalgic, popular romance which has overcome so many artists who have chosen to live and work in remote places. His paintings of his cattle and horses are true both to them – their shapes, the poses they strike, the larger clustered forms of the herd – and true to the physical realities of painting – the plane of canvas, the texture of paint, the movement of the artist’s hand. Waddell’s paintings are deceptively accurate, but detail is suppressed by the intensity of his love of rich painted surfaces. Waddell received an MFA from Wayne State University and later served as Associate Professor and Sculpture Area Chairman in the Department of Art at University of Montana.

In the Proper Frame of Reference: Women Artists from the Permanent Collection

April 28 – July 22, 2001

Perkins Gallery

This exhibition highlights major international, American, and regional artists whose works are in the Museum’s Permanent Collection. During the 1970s the art world finally began to acknowledge women artists. Women have been at the forefront of many of the most fascinating artistic innovations throughout art history. For decades art historians relegated the existence of women in the art world to the position of objects of the male artists’ gaze. Now women have opted men’s illogical position of domination of the art world and are exploring many issues often more intensely or more creatively than many male artists have. The artists in this exhibition, including Lenora Carrington, Arline Erdrich, Ann Turnley, and Maria Castagliola, examine their unique artistic and individual heritages through issues such as self-identity, self-reflection, and personal relationships with others.

Twentieth Century Japanese Ceramics from the Permanent Collection

March 17 – July 1, 2001

Murray and Ledger Galleries

The Museum’s fine collection of 20th century Japanese ceramics is presented in this exhibition. Emphasis is placed on tracing the natural and artistic roots of the forms and styles.

Donald Sultan: In the Still-Life Tradition

March 31 – June 3, 2001

Dorothy Jenkins and Emily S. Macey Galleries

The work of Donald Sultan is voluminous and varied. Since 1975, when he arrived in New York, Sultan’s creative energy has manifested itself in the media of paint, printing, and sculpting. His extensive body of work has placed him at the forefront of contemporary art, where he has become best known for his ability to successfully merge the best of yesterday’s artistic tradition with a fresh, modern approach that is unique. Donald Sultan: In the Still Life Tradition focuses on Sultan’s untraditional approach to a traditional theme: Still Lifes. Featured are twenty of the artist’s large-scale paintings (8′ x 8′), including his well-known vases and flowers, lemons, dominos, and buttons as well as his latest works of red tomatoes.

Born in 1951 in Asheville, North Carolina, Donald Sultan received his BFA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and his MFA from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. He moved to New York in 1975. Sultan has been given numerous exhibitions dedicated to his work, as well as having been included in a number of group shows. His work is included in the permanent collection of many prestigious institutions including The Museum of Modern Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Donald Sultan: In the Still Life Tradition was organized by the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee, and curated by Dana Holland-Beickert. This exhibition is circulated by Pamela Auchincloss, Arts Management. Funding for the national tour and catalogue is provided by FedEx.

Lise Drost: Portals to a Deeper Place

February 17 – April 22, 2001

Perkins Gallery

The Polk Museum of Art presents an exhibition by Florida artist Lise Drost. Drost is an assistant professor and the head of printmaking oat the University of Miami. She creates large-scale, mixed-media prints and drawings using layers of images, colors, patterns, and surfaces. By gathering images from her surroundings and combining them within real and imaginary spaces, Drost is able to gain new insight into her relationship with the world around her. Her goal is to create complex imagery that serves as a starting point for the viewer’s own thoughts, and she strives to make artworks that keep the viewer occupied and engaged over a long period of time, revealing different images as time progresses.

Clyde Butcher: The Millennium Project

January 27 – March 25, 2001

Dorothy Jenkins and Emily S. Macey Galleries

Wilderness photography with a focus on preservation.

The Polk Museum of Art opens its first exhibition of the real “new millennium” with a beautiful vision for the future. Clyde Butcher has established himself as a premier photographer of Florida’s wilderness. His intent has been to draw attention to the hidden beauty that still lies at the core of state, thereby bringing renewed interest in natural preservation. In Visions for the Next Millennium, Butcher has broadened the scope of his mission by including photographs that he has taken throughout the United States. The thirty-seven stunning black-and-white images range from the relatively modes size of 3′ x 4′ up to a breathtaking 5′ x 9′.

Art and Design: Unity

August 14 – December 12, 2010

Ledger and Murray Galleries

This exhibition is the last in of a series of exhibitions over the past two years that demonstrated the role of the Principles of Design within artworks from the Museum’s Permanent Collection. This exhibit will focus on unity, which is what occurs when all of the other principles of design have been applied correctly. It creates a sense of order and makes the work feel complete.

Sculpture Garden

Permanent Exhibit

Contemporary works by James Bassham, Jane Jaskevich, Fonchen Lord and Michael Mick are featured in the Museum’s permanent outdoor exhibition space. During school tours, our waterwall is turned on to provide a stimulating backdrop for the works on display.