Exhibition Archive: 2014-2016

Elizabeth "Grandma" Layton: You Gotta Have Art

October 11, 2016—January 28, 2017

The Beach Museum of Art's twentieth anniversary theme, "You Gotta Have Art," was inspired by the words printed on caps worn by Elizabeth Layton and her husband in many of her self-portraits. The caps were gifts from her friend Don Lambert, the Ottawa Herald reporter who discovered her work in 1977 and helped to establish Layton as an important American artist through his writing and curation of exhibitions. The succinct phrase encapsulates how art was a positive force in Elizabeth Layton's life. After an unstable marriage that ended in divorce, the death of a son, a lifelong battle with manic depression, and thirteen debilitating electroshock treatments, Layton took her first class in contour drawing and discovered how art could help her heal. Her drawings examined universal human experiences such as aging, death, social injustice, and love through the lens of her own life and body.

Civil War Era Drawings from the Becker Collection

September 10 - December 17, 2016

The Becker Archive in Boston, Massachusetts, contains approximately 650 previously undocumented drawings by Joseph Becker and his colleagues, nineteenth-century artists who worked as artist-reporters for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. They observed, drew, and sent back for publication images of the Civil War, the construction of the railroads, the Chicago fire, and other important events of nineteenth-century American history. There has been no major exhibition or scholarly survey featuring Civil War drawings since the 1961 centennial, and at that time the Becker Collection had not yet come to light.

Civil War Era Drawings from the Becker Collection offers the first opportunity for scholars and enthusiasts to see selections from this important and previously unknown collection, and to appreciate these national treasures as artworks. Part of this traveling exhibition will be displayed at the U.S. Cavalry Museum at Fort Riley through a partnership that will also bring Civil War-related artifacts from the Cavalry Museum to the galleries of the Beach Museum of Art. Later interpretations of the Civil War by John Steuart Curry from the Beach Museum of Art collection will also be featured.

Civil War Drawings from the Becker Collectionis organized by Curatorial Assistance Traveling Exhibitions. Drawings from the Becker Collection premiered at the McMullen Museum at Boston College in the exhibition First Hand: Civil War Era Drawings from the Becker Collectionwhich was organized by the McMullen Museum and underwritten by Boston College and Patrons of the McMullen Museum.

Art of the Game: Selections from the Permanent Collection

May 12 - July 24, 2016

This exhibition is presented in conjunction with the Manhattan Public Library summer reading theme “On Your Mark, Get Set, Read.”

Behind the Glass Eye: Photographs by Toyo Miyatake

April 5, 2016 - July 31, 2016

Toyo Miyatake (1895–1979) was a Los Angeles-based Japanese American artist and photographer, best known for his photographs that secretly documented the lives of Japanese Americans interned at Manzanar in the High Sierras of California during World War II.

The exhibition Behind the Glass Eye includes Miyatake’s early experimental studio images as well as the more well-known scenes inside the barbed wired fencing of Manzanar. Together these photographs tell the story of an artistic life interrupted by war.

This exhibition is guest-curated by Hirokazu Kosaka, artistic director of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles, and Alan Miyatake of the Toyo Miyatake Studio in San Gabriel, CA.

2015 Common Works of Art

August 24, 2015 - July 2016

Annually, the Kansas State Book Network (KSBN) chooses a book which is given to all incoming students. The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore was selected as the K-State Common Book for the 2015-16 academic year . With assistance from the KSBN selection committee, two works of art that mirror the themes found in the book have been selected as the Common Works of Art. Mitosis (2000), an earthenware piece by former K-State student Jarod Morris and a 2001 untitled painting by Tom Kretz will be on display through July 2016.

Minidoka on My Mind: Paintings and Prints by Roger Shimomura

April 5, 2016 - July 17, 2016

“Since 2006 I have done over 70 paintings and 50 prints that are based upon the incarceration camp experience during WWII, when over 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast were sent off to live in tar paper barracks, hemmed in behind barbed wire fences, surrounded by guard towers with machine guns pointed in. These camps were situated in deserts and lava fields in ten of the most desolate locations in the Western United States. I was a child of 2-5 years of age and all of my earliest recollections of life are from Camp Minidoka, Idaho.

This exhibition should serve as a reminder that during times of international crises, our government seems to consistently lose its memory regarding past mistakes.”

Roger Shimomura’s paintings, prints, and theatre pieces address sociopolitical issues of ethnicity. He was born in Seattle, Washington and spent two years of his early childhood in Minidoka, Idaho, one of 10 concentration camps for Japanese Americans during WWII. During his career as an artist and teacher he has received numerous prestigious awards. Art works by Shimomura are in the permanent collections of over ninety museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution.

Beneath the Prairie Sky: Photography by Jim Richardson

March 8, 2016 - June 26, 2016

In his photographic projects for National Geographic over the last three decades, Jim Richardson has explored natural landscapes and human cultures and environmental issues around the world. But those worldwide photographic coverages were rooted in his Kansas upbringing and the subjects he found close to home. Beneath the Prairie Sky will explore life and meaning on the Great Plains. He has returned often to the subject of the prairie and the livelihoods of the people who make their homes in that ecosystem, at once rich and austere, beautiful and punishing. Filled with both exhilarating wonder and gnawing doubt, the artist says these photographs reflect 50 years of soul searching. Jim Richardson is the 2016 Friends of the Beach Museum of Art Gift Print Artist.

First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare

February 4 - 28, 2016

The world’s largest Shakespeare collection, the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC, is sending a First Folio here as part of a national tour marking the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death. Published in 1623, the First Folio is the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays; of the 233 copies known today, 82 belong to the Folger. The Folio's only stop in Kansas is at the Beach Museum of Art.

While at the university in February 2016, the English department will co-host the exhibition in partnership with K-State Libraries, the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, and McCain Auditorium for a month of events surrounding the Folio's visit. Other campus and community partners also are assisting.

First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare, on tour from the Folger Shakespeare Library, has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor, and by the generous support of Google.org and Vinton and Sigrid Cerf.

Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists

September 16, 2015 - January 31, 2016

This exhibition and its accompanying publication will be the first comprehensive overview of Associated American Artists (AAA; 1934-2000), the New-York based business best known as the publisher of prints sold via mail-order catalogue by Regionalists Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood. The exhibition explores AAA’s storied involvement in the surging popularity of American prints during the 1930s and 1940s. It also looks at AAA’s brokering of corporate art commission and war documentation during the 1940s and its campaign to convince American home owners to purchase its wares, including also ceramics, upholstery and clothing fabrics. The exhibition will feature over 125 works by some of the 600 AAA artists, including Peggy Bacon, Miguel Covarrubias, David Hockney, and Gabor Peterdi.

Jacqueline Bishop: Songs for the Earth

August 4 - December 20, 2015

Jacqueline Bishop explores psychological connections between humans and nonhumans through paintings, drawings and printmaking. Influenced by more than two decades of traveling the forests in the Amazon, experiencing Katrina, and documenting the BP Oil Spill, her work addresses the politics behind species extinction, and eco-political injustice. The result is surreal landscapes impacted by technology, industrialization, and overpopulation. In these environments birds, symbols for Bishop of the human soul, call out for careful consideration of the delicate balance between organisms and the earth. The exhibition will feature material related to Bishop’s creative process.

Bishop studied art and philosophy at the University of Kansas. She received her BA in painting from the University of New Orleans and MFA in painting from Tulane University.

The Hero’s Journey: Selections from the Permanent Collection

June 2 - July 26, 2015

The stories of heroes have inspired artists for centuries. Explore the myths, legends, fairy tales, and true stories of heroes--famous and not so famous--as you journey to discover your own interpretation of the term. This exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Kansas Library Association summer reading program “Heroes” theme.

Dinner and a Mid-night Snack: Gifts of Contemporary Art from Donald J. Mrozek and R. Scott Dorman

February 3 - July 12, 2015

Art collectors Don Mrozek and Scott Dorman have donated close to 300 works on paper to the Beach Museum of Art. This eclectic selection reflects their shared love of music, literature, post-modern art, and mid-twentieth century modernist architecture. Guest curated by associate professor and librarian Thomas Bell and associate professor of landscape architecture Katie Kingery-Page of Kansas State University.

Dean Mitchell: A Place, A Mental Space

March 3 - June 21, 2015

During a visit to the Southwest, a friend took Dean Mitchell on a drive through the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community in metropolitan Phoenix. The artist was immediately struck by the visual similarities between the structures he encountered on the reservation and the buildings in his hometown of Quincy, Florida. "Dean Mitchell: A Place, A Mental Space" includes watercolor and oil paintings of scenes from the Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and the artist’s hometown. The exhibition will also feature the 2015 Friends of the Beach Museum of Art Gift Print, an etching by Mitchell.

2014 Common Work of Art

August 26, 2014 - May 17, 2015

View Salvage Yard Teapot D4E, the 2014 Common Work of Art presented in conjunction with K-State's 2014 Common Book, Steven Johnson's The Ghost Map.

Open A.I.R. (Artist In Residence): The Center for Food Perception and Aesthetics

April 15 - 17, 2015

The Center for Food Perception and Aesthetics is a 3-day socially-engaged collaborative project of Dialogue-Lab (D-Lab). In this iteration, D-LAB, examines food production, consumption, service, convenience, and cultural identity in 21^st century Kansas through the practice of an artist researcher. The project employs local and regional partnerships to explore a range of food-related issues.

Life Forms: Chet Peters

September 12, 2014 - March 22, 2015

Chet Peters, who served as K-State’s vice president of student affairs from 1953 to 1985, positively impacted the lives of countless Kansans. His talks at high schools around the state encouraged students to develop their full potential and helped them see how K-State could assist in that process. In addition to serving as a passionate advocate for young people, Peters sculpted wood prolifically. He created gifts, awards, public sculptures, and unusual interactive pieces, which he frequently employed to illustrate ideas during lectures. This exhibition includes carvings of many types from the Peters family.

Earth and Loom: A Century of Native American Art from the Collection of Dennis and Carola Deschner

October 28 - December 21, 2014

This exhibition includes twenty Navajo weavings from the late nineteenth century and twentieth century representing different regions and weaving stles. Also included are twenty-six pieces of Pueblo pottery by significant late-nineteenth and twenty-century Native American potters from nine pueblos.

Tree of Life: The Art of Charles Bello

September 12 - December 14, 2014

This exhibition offers a window into the redwood forest of Northern California, a forest that artist, architect and environmentalist Charles Bello has dedicated his life to preserving.

Making: Progress

November 4 - December 7, 2014

Gallerist Kat Griefen will make selections for "Making:Progress", a juried exhibition of work by students enrolled in the Kansas State University Department of Art. Griefen co-directs the Accola Griefen Gallery in New York. Launched in 2011, the gallery exhibits work by emerging, mid-, and late-career contemporary artists with a focus on women artists, including Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Renee Stout, two artists in the Beach Museum of Art collection.

Dawoud Bey: Picturing People

June 17, 2014 - October 5, 2014

Since 1975, Chicago-based photographer Dawoud Bey has developed a body of work distinguished for its commitment to portraiture as a means for understanding contemporary social circumstances. In order to engage more fully with his subjects and to help convey candor and expression, Bey has investigated a range of methods such as chance street encounters and studio portraits. This career survey of Bey’s work, including selections from past projects available to the public for the first time, was organized by The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago.

Igniting the Senses: Selections from the Permanent Collection

June 6, 2014 - October 5, 2014

In conjunction with the Manhattan Public Library summer reading theme "Fizz--Boom--Read", this exhibition explores the science of multimodal sensory perception--the idea of one sense igniting another.

Joan Backes: Where the Heart Belongs

October 18, 2013 - September 14, 2014

The open structures created by artist Joan Backes invite various interpretations and questions about the notion of “house” and “home.”

Take Shelter: An Installation by Tom Parish

February 5, 2014 - June 29, 2014

Manhattan artist Tom Parish has meticulously documented native stone arched-roof root cellars over the last two years. These subterranean structures, often the last remnants of Flint Hills pioneer homesteads, are the focus of the artist’s original multi-media installation. With high-definition, 360-degree large-scale photographs of the cellars, maps, written text, and audio recordings, Parish’s immersive environment conveys the history of the cellars and their significance to the region.