The Owensboro Museum of Fine Art is continuing to serve the community and region during the COVID-19 pandemic through an internet presence featuring a wide variety of visual arts offerings.
Since the museum’s closure on March 14, a series of gallery tours and projects for children have been featured. Tours of exhibitions on display at the time of the closing that are currently posted include the 57th Annual Art Guild Juried Show and Great Gifts, a collection of more than 40 recent acquisitions to the museum’s Permanent Collection.
A new schedule of exhibitions and programs scheduled for the remainder of 2020 is being planned and will be released in the coming weeks as more official reopening information is received from governmental sources.
These include A Celebration of Women, sponsored by U.S. Bank, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the signing of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution; RiverArtes IV, sponsored by Owensboro Health, designed to enhance the City of Owensboro’s public art collection; The Remarkable Art of Penny Sisto; and the 45th Annual Holiday Forest Festival of Trees, sponsored by The Glenmore Distillery.
Two major festivals, Art by the Stars and the 14th Annual Bronze Buffalo Festival, are also being postponed until later in the year.
Scheduled for release this week is a virtual tour of the museum’s Permanent Collection Galleries including the John Hampden Smith House Decorative Art Wing’s five period rooms; paintings and assemblages by the late Joe Downing (1925-2007) in the Texas Gas Atrium; the Marilyn and William Young Contemporary Gallery; and the Mildred Stout Field Stained Glass Gallery of late 19th-century German windows, a gift from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Owensboro.
ARTLAND ON LINE, educational projects designed for stay-at-home creative activities and an extension of the children’s art studio sponsored by Michael E. Horn Family Foundation, will also be unveiled later this week. These unique sessions will offer instruction using “found” materials available in most homes.
A highlight of the online programming is a continuing survey of the museum’s extensive collection of more than 4,000 American and European works of fine and decorative arts dating from the 16th century to the present. The survey is being presented in a multiple series of thematic, period and stylistic categories.
Already online are aspects of the museum’s collections such as the early Kentucky landscape paintings of Paul Sawyier (1865-1917), Harvey Joiner (1852-1932) and Carl Brenner (1838-1888); the major American sculpture collection featuring Harry Jackson (1924-2011), Robert Berks (1922-2011) and Allen Houser (1914-1994); and the monumental bronze buffalo by T. D. Kelsey installed in the museum’s Ryan.
Collections yet to be featured are the museum’s extensive holdings of Appalachian Folk Art; 20th century Figurative Painting; Kentucky Marionettes from The Appalachian Puppetry Caravan; Contemporary Regional Painting and Sculpture; Hispanic santos and bultos from the American Southwest and more.
The public may access this programming by visiting the museum’s website omfa.us, subscribing to its email newsletter ArtWorks, or visiting Facebook and Instagram.
