For the first time, the public will be able to view portraits of Colonel Abraham Owen, Owensboro’s namesake, when the Owensboro Museum of Fine Art opens its “KY250” exhibition later this month. The event will also showcase what organizers say is a landmark collection of Kentucky artwork rarely seen outside a private home.
The exhibition will feature rare portraits, early Kentucky artwork, historic artifacts, and reenactors tied to the American Revolution. A reception is scheduled for 5:30-7:30 p.m. on June 27 at the museum. The exhibition, sponsored by Owensboro Health, is part of the museum’s recognition of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.
Jason Hayden, director of the museum, said the exhibition is especially significant because much of the artwork comes from a private collection that has rarely been seen outside the home of Dr. R. Wathen Medley Jr.
“You’re not going to see a better collection of Kentucky painters anywhere outside this collection, all gathered in one place,” Hayden said. “It’s really perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition, because these may never show again outside the Medley family.”
A highlight of the exhibition will be the public debut of portraits of Owen and his wife, Martha Dupuy Owen. The portraits are on loan from the Stacy family of Charleston, South Carolina, descendants of the Owen family.
Owen moved to Kentucky in 1785, served in the legislature, and was a member of the state’s constitutional convention in 1799. The portraits will be displayed alongside the museum’s portrait of Joseph Hamilton Daveiss, for whom Daviess County was named.
Both Owen and Daveiss died at the Battle of Tippecanoe on Nov. 7, 1811.
Hayden said the portraits help connect Owensboro and Daviess County directly to the broader story of the country’s founding era.
“They’re both very important to Owensboro and Daviess County’s history,” Hayden said. “For the time that we have for this exhibition, they’re going to all be in the same place for everybody to see.”
Dr. James Naas, president of the OMFA Board of Trustees, said the museum staff and board have been planning the exhibition for some time.
“It’s important to understand that the staff at the museum, as well as the board of directors, have really committed to recognizing the role of Kentucky through its many years,” Naas said. “The show is a look at what has been important in Kentucky in those 250 years.”
Naas said he hopes visitors leave with “a pride in community and an appreciation for the very significant threads of Kentucky that run through the quilt of the nation.”
The reception will also feature historical reenactors portraying three figures connected to the American Revolution. McCellus Mayes will portray Crispus Attucks, who is considered the first casualty of the Revolutionary War after dying during the Boston Massacre. Asa Seiber will portray Thomas Moseley, an Owensboroan and member of the 9th Virginia Regiment. Jeff Stokes will portray Capt. John Parker, who commanded the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington.
The reenactors will also appear in the museum galleries from 1-4 p.m. on June 28.
The exhibition includes works by early Kentucky artists Carl C. Brenner, Paul Sawyier, Harvey Joiner, Robert Burns Wilson, and Patty Thum, with more than half of the pieces coming from the collection of Medley and his late wife, Jeanette Napier Medley.
Medley said the collection grew over several decades, beginning with pieces collected by his mother, who served on the original board that helped establish the museum.
“My wife and I just loved going to auctions,” Medley said. “We just gradually accumulated the Harvey Joiners and Paul Sawyiers and the Carl Brenner-type paintings.”
Medley said the museum recently borrowed nearly 50 paintings from his collection.
“The house looks naked, but that’s all right,” Medley said. “I get them back.”
He said his mother and wife would have appreciated seeing the pieces shared with the community.
“I think they would love it,” Medley said. “My late wife, we’d go to the galas, we were interested in the functions that the museum had, and of course, my mother was on the initial board.”
David Taylor, an antiques and art dealer, said the exhibition represents a rare gathering of Kentucky artwork.
“It’s an extraordinary collection of truly Kentucky art, or Kentucky-related art,” Taylor said. “You have some of the biggest, most well-known artists’ names in Kentucky art represented in this show.”
Taylor said the exhibition is important even for those who may not regularly follow art because the works help document Kentucky’s past.
“You’re looking at the talent of people that are recording what Kentucky was 150 years ago,” Taylor said. “These aren’t prints. These are the originals, and that’s a horse of another color.”
Taylor said the quality and number of works make the exhibition unusual.
“It’s not going to come again in this magnitude or this quality,” he said.
The exhibition also includes replica artifacts created by contemporary Kentucky artisans, including an American Colonial day dress by Paula Alex Naas, a frontier possibles bag by Joe Mills, and a traditionally forged knife by bladesmith Max Soaper.
Other featured works include miniature replicas of early American ships by Bardstown artist Jim Cantrell, ships in bottles by Owensboro artist Greg Alvey, a teaching wall hanging by Leitchfield quilters Sharon Duke and Linda Gentry, a replica of the steamboat Robert E. Lee by Hawesville artist Franklin Meserve, and a needlepoint by artist John Schleicher.
Three graphic reproductions from William D.T. Travis’s Civil War panorama are also on display courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Hayden said the exhibition connects Kentucky’s earliest history with the artists and craftspeople who continue to preserve it.
“The history of art is the history of the world,” Hayden said. “What the art does is it reflects the times.”
“KY250” will remain on display through July 12. Admission to the museum is free. Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 1-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
