Editors: Please note holiday closings of Mulvane: The Museum, ArtLab and gift shop will be closed Monday, Nov. 19 through Monday, Nov. 26 and from Monday, Dec. 17, 2012 through Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013.
Works by a native of Topeka and pieces from a family
collection will be
featured exhibitions at the Mulvane Art Museum through Jan. 27,
2013.
The influence
of
the Southwest is a theme in “Capturing the Spirit: Prints by Kenneth M.
Adams.” Born in Topeka,
Adams began art studies in 1913 with George M. Stone, who was a
local artist. He later
studied at the Chicago Art
Institute, the New York Art Students League and spent time in
academic training
in Europe. While studying with Andrew Dasburg in Woodstock,
N.Y., he became
acquainted with Cezanne, Picasso and the Cubists. In 1927, Adams relocated to
Taos, N.M., where
he became the final and youngest member of the Taos Society of
Artists and
taught at the University of New Mexico. Adams distinguished
himself from other
Taos artists by responding to the humble dignity and culture of
the Spanish
and Indian people of the area. He
had a
fascination with the uniqueness of their everyday lives in the
fields,
irrigation ditches and building their adobe homes. An inward
appreciation of
common things and ordinary people is strongly suggested in his
most successful
pictures that captured the spirit of the people and the place
where he lived in
New Mexico. He died in
Albuquerque in
1966.
The
prints, which are part of the Mulvane’s permanent collection
were donated to
the Mulvane Art Museum in 1964 by Herbert Spear, in memory of
his wife, Mable,
the sister of Adams.
“Lasting
Impressions,” are works on loan from the Pruitt Family
Collection. Stephen
W. and Mary M. Pruitt, of Overland Park, Kan., began collecting
in 1989 with
their first fine art purchase -- a dark and mysterious 1890
landscape etching
by the German artist Franz von Stuck. Neither one of them had
ever taken
a course in art history, nor had spent so much as an hour inside
a commercial
art gallery. But there was something about that print that
seemed to
reach out and touch them. It was, as Martin Krause, curator of
prints,
drawings and photographs at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, said
at that time,
"a great place to start building a collection."
The Pruitt family has
shared
their love of collecting with the general public for almost 25
years through 11
museum exhibition across the country.
The collection, which features works from the 1500s
through the 1900s,
includes pieces by Thomas
Hart Benton, Childe Hassam, James
Abbott McNeill Whistler, Anders Zorn, John Sloan, Felix Buhot,
Erich Heckel,
Albert Belleroche, Peter Ilsted, Frederick Sommer, Imogen
Cunningham, Wynn
Bullock, Camille Corot and Grant Wood.
Stephen
Pruitt will present a discussion on collecting art, "Masterworks
on Main
Street," at 2 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 11 at the Mulvane Art Museum.
The Mulvane Art Museum, ArtLab and gift shop are open 10
a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through
Friday and 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free.
The Museum, ArtLab
and gift shop will be closed Monday, Nov. 19 through Monday,
Nov. 26 and from Monday, Dec. 17, 2012 through Tuesday, Jan.
1, 2013.
The Mulvane is located on the campus of Washburn
University, at 17th and Jewell Streets. Free parking is available
directly to the west of the Museum. Call 785-670-1124 or go to
washburn.edu/mulvane.
-30-
Contact:
Dena
Anson, university relations, 785-670-1711
