Exhibition Archive: 2023-2025
To the Stars Through Art: A History of Art Collecting in Kansas Public Schools, 1900-1950
August 22, 2023 – May 11, 2024
Click here to view the virtual exhibition
In 1911 the school superintendent in McPherson, Kansas, organized an exhibition to acquire artwork for a new high school. This became an annual ticketed event, allowing the McPherson schools to establish a rich collection of works by regionally and nationally recognized artists, among them James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Birger Sandzén and Fern Coppedge.
Before the mid-century, schools in dozens of Kansas communities, including boarding schools for Indigenous students and segregated schools, joined McPherson in acquiring original art. To the Stars Through Art will feature 70 paintings and prints by Blackbear Bosin, Norma Bassett Hall, Walter Ufer and other artists, from more than a dozen schools and history museums across the state.
A goal of the exhibition is to guide Kansas schools in caring for their collections and using art for educational enrichment. The exhibition is being organized by Curator Elizabeth Seaton in collaboration with regional scholars and museum curators.
wood+paper+box in your hands
2023 Friends of the Beach Museum of Art Gift Print
October 3, 2023 – May 3, 2024
Katie Baldwin, Mariko Jesse, and Yoonmi Nam make up the artist collective wood+paper+box. They are also the creators of the 2023 Gift Print and the focus of this exhibition. They met in Japan in 2004 at an artist residency and studied mokuhanga, the traditional Japanese woodblock printmaking technique. Artworks by wood+paper+box carry the spark born of shared experience and are created through collaboration, interaction, and friendship. They offer the idea of appreciating art not just by looking but also by touching and participating. In the exhibition, visitors can handle and interact with a sample gift print, Mise-en-Scène.
The 2023 Gift Print is available to the public for purchase. Friends of the Beach Museum of Art at any level receive a 25% discount on the price. For more information about becoming a Friend or purchasing a gift print, please call 785-532-7718 or email beachart@ksu.edu.
Voices: Women Artists in the Era of Second Wave Feminism
August 9, 2022 – December 16, 2023
Click here to view the virtual exhibition
The fight for suffrage propelled the first wave feminism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During the 1960s and 1970s a new generation of women took up the cause of equality. Their demands centered on reproductive rights and passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Works by women artists in the museum’s collection give insights into voices from this second wave of feminism. Among the artists are Lee Krasner, Louise Nevelson, Jenny Holzer, and Shirley Smith.
Unspoken Bonds
January 24 – July 29, 2023
Why do people come together? This exhibition organized in conjunction with the American Library Association’s 2023 summer reading slogan, “All Together Now,” is a visual survey of human relationships and how they form.