UO's Schnitzer Museum an octogenarian

Multiple exhibitions and other attractions are in store as the UO’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art celebrates its 80th birthday.

The museum will offer special loans, a first-time online exhibition catalog and a free, public reception from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, May 31.

“In honor of our 80th anniversary,” Executive Director Jill Hartz said, “we’re honoring the community that has supported and appreciated this museum for eight decades. With its continued engagement, we look forward to another 80 years of providing high quality exhibitions and stimulating public programs that embrace our community’s interests and priorities.”

From June 1 to Sept. 1, “Living Legacies: The JSMA @ 80” will celebrate the collectors and collections that reflect the museum’s mission and vision for the future. With more than 100 pieces of art in the Barker Gallery from more than 60 collectors, the exhibit represents the diversity of work in the region.

The exhibit will also be available on the museum’s website through the JSMA’s first online exhibition catalog.

The Schnitzer Gallery, meanwhile, will feature “New American Acquisitions” – works acquired through gift and purchase over the last five years. They include works from the Americas and the Caribbean, including Central and South America and Cuba.

The Focus Gallery will feature the West Coast premiere of “Light Journey: An Odyssey in Paint,” a retrospective exhibition of the art of Korean-born artist Su Kwak, May 28 to July 28. The show brings together 31 pieces of work that affirm the artist’s use of light and color to capture her spiritual life.

A selection of Japanese art acquisitions from the Wadsworth Collection, a recent gift of more than 150 contemporary Japanese prints, is on display in the Preble/Murphy Gallery. Also on view as part of “Living Legacies” are a series of woodblock prints, on loan from collector Lee Michels, featuring firemen.

As a permanent marker of the museum’s 80th anniversary, the public is invited to help acquire “Order (The Red Guards),” from the 2011 exhibition “Xiaoze Xie: Amplified Moments (1993-2008),” on view in the Soreng Gallery. Xiaoze Xie is one of China’s prominent contemporary artists and is currently the Paul L. and Phyllis Wattis Professor of Art at Stanford University.

From June 15 to Sept. 15, the Artist Project Space features “Celebrating Oregon Artists,” a display of works created since the 1980s that represent the museum’s commitment to works by living artists from the state and community. Featured are works by Oregon artists Rick Bartow, Michael Brophy, Tom Cramer, Mel Katz, Whitney Nye, Lucinda Parker, Dan Powell, Jim Riswold and Gary Tepfer.

-- from the UO's Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art