The Beach Museum of Art Board of Visitors has been an integral part of supporting the museum since the beginning of the museum. The group was instrumental in raising funds and support for the initial construction of the museum nearly 20 years ago.
Dale and Susanne Bradley in the Beach Museum of Art’s Hempler Gallery. Dale Bradley serves as the chair of the Beach Museum Board of Visitors.
During the past 20 years, the Board of Visitors has continued to provide the steady stream of financial support for staffing, programs and art acquisitions that make for a dynamic, growing museum of art. Most recently, the Board has funded a “young museum professional” position for a recent K-State graduate. Individual members helped make possible the acquisition of an important painting by John Steuart Curry.
State support for the arts and higher education has steadily diminished. The museum relies on private support to fulfill its mission to the campus, the community and beyond.
We salute the current members of the Board of Visitors for not only their financial support of the museum, but their advocacy for the museum.
Football season at Kansas State is a time full of pride and enthusiasm! Did you know the Beach Museum of Art has a “museum tailgate” every home game? While you are waiting for the game to kickoff or exploring campus after the game, stop in to the Beach Museum of Art, during open hours, enjoy the art and pick up some snacks to keep the pep up.
Interested in American Art? Art history? Marketing? Beach Museum curator, Elizabeth Seaton, presents Art by Mail: Associated American Artists on Thursday, Oct. 1 at 5:30pm. Seaton’s presentation will discuss AAA’s storied involvement in the popularization of American prints in the 1930s, as well as its ongoing promotion of American art over six decades. This is the first in a series of presentations related to the exhibition Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists.
“The Sowers” by Thomas Hart Benton is from the series “The Year of Peril.” Benton began the series immediately after the December 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, compelled to express on canvas this heightened threat to American democracy. The painting is in the collection of the State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia Research Center and Gallery.
Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists,an exhibition organized by the Beach Museum of Art, provides the first comprehensive overview of the commercial gallery best known as the publisher of prints by regionalist artists Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood that were sold via mail-order catalog. More than 136 works in the exhibition provide an account of Associated American Artists’ storied involvement in the sale of American prints and its lesser-known promotion of paintings, ceramics and textiles for more than six decades. Through aggressive marketing, Associated American Artists sought to bring original American art over the threshold of every American home.
A speaker series related to the exhibition will take place throughout the fall at the museum and includes the following presentations, all at 5:30 p.m.:
• Elizabeth Seaton, Beach Museum of Art curator will present “Art by Mail: Associated American Artists” on Thursday, Oct. 1.
• Joan Stack, State Historical Society of Missouri curator, will present “Thomas Hart Benton: The Perils of War” on Thursday, Oct. 29.
• Kristina Wilson, Clark University professor of art history, will present “The American Home of the 1950s” on Thursday, Nov. 5.
• Erika Doss, Notre Dame University professor of American studies, will present “Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood” on Thursday, Nov. 19.
The Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art furthers the teaching, research, and service missions of Kansas State University by collecting, studying, caring for, and presenting the visual art of Kansas and the region.
