PLEASE NOTE: All exhibition descriptions are excerpts from Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art's quarterly newsletter, L'Artiste.2008
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Past Exhibition Highlights |
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2007 2006 |
2005 2004 |
2003 2002 |
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Gallery The Highwaymen Circulated by the Orange County Regional History Center South Gallery Highwaymen Paintings: A Premiere Exhibition From the George Algernon Speer, Jr. Collection Presenting Sponsor: Raymond James The Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art is proud to present two exhibitions featuring the work of Florida’s Highwaymen artists. The Highwaymen, is a national touring exhibition from the collection of Geoff Cook being circulated by the Orange County Regional History Center, Orlando, Florida, and Highwaymen Paintings is a premiere exhibition of 22 paintings from the family collection of George Algernon Speer, Jr. Speer was a prominent prosecuting attorney in Sanford, Florida and one of the early collectors of Highwaymen art. The Highwaymen were a group of 26 African-American self-taught artists who lived and painted in Fort Pierce and Brevard County, Florida. Most notably the group included Alfred Hair, the artist who developed the fast method of oil painting that came to define the style of the Highwaymen, and Harold Newton, an artist who specialized in painting landscapes. A.E. (Beanie) Backus, a southern white and well-known Florida landscape artist, is credited with teaching and encouraging Hair and Newton to paint. The other 24 Highwaymen, including Mary Ann Carroll, the only female in the group, were apprentices to either Newton or Hair and each developed their own distinctive style, brush strokes and trademarks. The Highwaymen started painting in the 1950s and enjoyed successful artistic careers throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s. A renewed interest in the Highwaymen began in the 1990s when collectors came to recognize their contribution to Florida’s artistic and natural history. The value of their work has increased dramatically from the $25 - $35 originally paid. Today the paintings are worth thousands of dollars and are receiving national acclaim. The
Highwaymen painted many of their landscape scenes in an hour or less and sold
their art to motels, banks, doctors’ and lawyers’ offices, restaurants and the
general public. Many paintings were sold out of the trunks of their cars, often
before the oils had time to dry. For many of the Highwaymen, painting and
selling landscape art was an escape from their laborious jobs in factories,
orange groves and fields. |
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March 30 - May 28, 2008
 Dorothy Gillespie (American, b. 1922) Celestial Journey, 1987 Enamel on aluminum, 58 x 40 x 15 in. On loan from Radford University Art Gallery |
Dorothy Gillespie: Shaping Sculpture Presenting Sponsors: Octogenarian Dorothy Gillespie has been an important figure in contemporary American art since the 1950s – she is one of the leading women artists of her generation. Her reputation as an artist spans many of the important movements of post-World War II art including Happenings, environments, installation art, theatre stage design, and art-in-public places. Ms. Gillespie, who forged new directions in metal sculpture, is best known for her large enamel painted, cut aluminum striped installations. Dorothy Gillespie was born in Roanoke, Virginia and attended the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore in 1941. She moved to New York City and studied with the Art Students League and at Stanley William Hayter’s Atelier 17. Ms. Gillespie has maintained a studio in New York City throughout most of her career She recently moved to Orlando where she continues to work today. Dorothy Gillespie has had numerous solo exhibitions, art-in-public places commissions, various teaching position, and has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards. She is also well known as a guest lecturer and has served on the boards of various arts organizations around the country. The Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art is honored to host Dorothy Gillespie: Shaping Sculpture as a retrospective exhibition of the artist’s career. The 29 works in the exhibit span from a 1944 oil on canvas painting and to a 1997 mixed media piece that stands over 10 feet high. Circulated by Radford University Art Museum in Virginia, this exhibition was organized by Dr. Steve Arbury, curator of the Dorothy Gillespie collection and chairman of the Radford University Art Department. Ms. Gillespie has had a long term relationship with Radford University where she has been a visiting artist and Distinguished Professor of Art (1997-1999). She has gifted 70 of her personal works as well as an impressive personal collection of works by other important 20th century artists to the University. Dorothy Gillespie: Shaping Sculpture is the second exhibition organized by Radford University to be shown at the
Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art. You may remember the 2002 Ibrahm Lassaw: Deep
Space and Beyond exhibition, curated by Arthur F. Jones, which was exhibited
during the Museum’s inaugural year. |
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June 8 - August 3, 2008 |
California Dreaming: Tapestries of Abraham Rattner: The Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art presented two exhibitions opening June 8, 2008. California Dreaming: California Fibers at Convergence 2008, was a juried exhibition of 42 contemporary fiber arts by 16 members of California Fibers, a professional juried group. Tapestries of Abraham Rattner: Created at the Mambush Artists’ Workshop in Israel was an exhibition of nine tapestries in the permanent collection of the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art. Both exhibitions were on view through August 3, 2008. These exhibitions complemented Convergence 2008 Tampa Bay, a biennial, international conference. The conference was sponsored and organized by the Handweavers Guild of America, hosted by the Florida TropicalWeavers Guild.
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| Valentyna Roenko Simpson, (Ukrainian Americian, 1955) The Blanket for Husband who left His Wife, 2002 |
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August 17 - October 19, 2008 Mel Finkelstein (American, 1932-1992) Bubbling Over, 1975 Gelatin silver print Finkelstein Family Collection |
Mel Finkelstein: Playing a Hunch From the Finkelstein Family Collection North and South Galleries Presenting Sponsor: EllMar Foundation It’s such an overwhelming thing to look back, year after year after year, what has happened before your camera and what your camera has captured. You sort of get the feeling that you’re part of the continuity of history. -Mel Finkelstein
This 40-year retrospective of photojournalist Mel Finkelstein (1932-1992) documents a career spent with the New York Daily News and later as photo editor for the New York Post. The 90 images in the show have been culled from thousands of images in the Finkelstein Family Collection. An engaging perspective of the life and times of Finkelstein has been captured in the exhibition catalog written by correspondent Jonathan Tilove of Newhouse News Service in Washington, D.C., who was contracted by the Museum to serve as the guest essayist. This fascinating exhibition includes photographs that document the feature stories, celebrities, politicians, and general life of the city in the years Finkelstein covered the beat of New York City. Mel Finkelstein: Playing a Hunch allows viewers to enjoy these vintage photographs while assessing how images stand the test of time as both historic and artistic expression. |
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November 2, 2008 – January 4, 2009
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(North Gallery) Color Woodblock PrintsSelections from the Two Red Roses Foundation During the glory days of color woodblock prints in the early decades of the twentieth century, American artists such as Arthur Wesley Dow, Margaret Jordan Patterson and Edna Boies Hopkins transformed a traditional technique with fresh, personal vision. Their experimental approach to design and hand-printing allowed them to freely explore color theory, composition and technical expertise in an intimate format that speaks directly to the viewer. This is the second exhibition the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art has organized from the collection of the Two Red Roses Foundation following the success of the premiere exhibition The American Arts & Crafts Home 1900-1915 (Jan. 22–Apr. 16, 2006). Susan J. Montgomery, noted arts and crafts scholar from Andover, Massachusetts, will again serve as guest curator for the exhibition and as essayist for the accompanying catalog. The exhibition, which spans the period from the 1890s to the 1930s, includes 90 woodblock prints, books and portfolios by artists whose works The Two Red Roses Foundation is a non-profit education institution based in Tarpon Springs that “collects and conserves objects made in America between approximately 1900 and 1920 in response to a spirit of reform in design, quality craftsmanship and straightforward materials.”
(South Gallery) Works on Paper
by Henry McBride The Henry McBride Foundation, formed in 2001, honors noted American art critic Henry McBride (1867-1962) who emerged following the 1913 Armory Show in New York as the premier critic of the modernist movement. “What so many others at the time found shocking and even repulsive in modernist art, McBride had the wit – and the aesthetic intelligence – to see as the classics of the future, and he had the good fortune to live long enough to see his judgment vindicated,” states Hilton Kramer in the introduction to the book Henry McBride The Flow of Art, Essays and Criticism. Through his years as art critic for the New York Sun and later for magazines such as the literary tome Dial and Art News, McBride became a close personal acquaintance with many important cultural figures on both sides of the Atlantic, including Gertrude Stein, Alfred Stieglitz, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Salvador Dalí. This exhibition, on loan from the Henry McBride Foundation, includes 31 works on paper created by McBride in the late 19th century, photos and ephemera documenting his career, and a modernist piece by dada artist Marcel Duchamp. McBride, who studied at the Artist-Artisan Institute and Art Students League in New York City, did not pursue a career as an artist, but his early works demonstrate academic training with a sense of expressive freedom. |
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