My favorite time of the year is quickly approaching. The long hot days of summer will soon give way to shorter days and the crisp cool evenings of autumn. The streets of Manhattan and Aggieville will soon be much busier with students returning to school. There will be football, marching bands, tailgating and the beautiful colors of fall.
In addition to the excitement of school starting, the Beach Museum of Art has an exciting new traveling exhibition opening on September 14. According to museum director, Linda Duke, “It is relatively rare for a small university art museum to have an opportunity to organize a major touring exhibition accompanied by a scholarly catalogue…. Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists is such a project.” Curator and project director, Liz Seaton, and all of the Beach Museum staff have worked for several years on this project. We hope you will come enjoy this exhibition and bring your friends and families.
Also happening at the Beach this fall is our gala on September 25. This year’s event looks to be another fun and exciting evening at the Beach thanks to the hard work of Micky Jensen and her committee. Buy your tickets and tell your neighbors. Come join us in celebration of “Art for Every Home.”
Friday evening, September 25, 2015, the Friends of the Beach Museum of Art will host their annual gala at the Bluemont Hotel and in the beautiful Beach Museum of Art. The evening’s theme is “Art for every home — Recalling earlier eras,” and the event will feature the very special exhibition of Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists. The evening begins at 6 p.m. at the Bluemont Hotel with heavy appetizers and entertainment, then continues at the museum with dessert and lively entertainment by campus performers, including the K-State Faculty JAZZtet.
Proceeds from the event are used to purchase Kansas and regional art for the museum’s collection. Tickerst are $125 per person; register on line at www.found.ksu.edu/rsvp/beach or call 785-532-7718 to see if there are still seats available.
A Treasury of Fine Art Masterpieces Created by Famous American Artists to Bring Beauty and Better Living into Your Home, (New York: Associated American Artists, 1951), Private collection
This traveling exhibition and its accompanying publications provides the first comprehensive overview of Associated American Artists (1934-2000), the commercial enterprise best known as the publisher of prints (sold via mail-order catalogue) by Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood.
Join us for an opening reception on Thursday, September 17 at 5:30pm. Meet the curator and view the exhibition. Hor d’oeurves will be hosted and refreshments available for purchase.
The exhibition addresses not only AAA’s storied involvement in the popularity of American prints in the 1930s, but its ongoing promotion of American art over six decades. Through aggressive marketing of studio prints, ceramics, and textiles, and associations with corporate advertisers, AAA sought to bring “original” American art over the threshold of every American home. “From Studio to Doorstep—Wherever You Are,” the company described in a 1945 mail-order brochure. “No longer would the would-be possessor of a beautiful picture have to go to town and visit an art dealer; or still harder, hire somebody to do it for him. Quite the contrary! Every American post office [is] to be like a branch agency for the creations of the pick of American artists.”
A major catalogue distributed by Yale University Press containing essays by scholars in the fields of American painting, printmaking, textiles, ceramics, and interior design accompanies the exhibition. A free, illustrated index of AAA prints, textiles, color reproductions, and ceramics will be made accessible online as a searchable pdf.
Organized by the Beach Museum of Art, the exhibition of 136 objects from twenty-eight museums and private collections will travel to the Grey Art Gallery, New York University (April 19-July 9, 2016); the American Historical Textile History Museum, Lowell, Massachusetts (September-December, 2016); and the Syracuse University Art Galleries, New York (January 26-March 26, 2017).
The exhibition’s co-curators are Liz Seaton of the Beach Museum of Art and Jane Myers, former curator at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas. Independent researcher Gail Windisch of Los Angeles is a third important contributor to the exhibition.
The Henry Luce Foundation provided major funding for the exhibition. In addition, Edward and Karen Seaton stepped forward to make funds available from the R.M. Seaton Endowment for Exhibitions. Additional support comes from the International Fine Print Dealers Association, Russell Clay Harvey and Patricia McGivern, and Candyce Russell.
We apologize for any inconvenience, but due to the intricate set-up involved with this exhibition the opening will be delayed until September 16, 2015. We hope you will join us at the opening reception on September 17 at 5:30p.m.
About Us
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.
