From the windmills of Holland to some of the world’s most famous athletes painted by a well-known American artist, the University’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art will be showcasing a variety of art this term.
The museum is featuring seven paintings from major artists of the U.S. post-World War II art movement called abstract expressionism. The movement, considered to be the first significant art movement in the United States, was started in New York City.
Abstract expressionism is not usually associated with recognizable forms and uses large canvasses. Painters whose work will display until March are some of the movement’s most famous, including Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Barnett Newman, Frank Stella, Adolph Gottlieb and Willem de Kooning.
Also featured is Ellen Gallagher’s “DeLuxe” – a portfolio in which she used black magazines for inspiration. When her work was unveiled at New York City’s Whitney Museum of American Art, New York magazine said it “confronts issues of race not with hectoring but with clever, even antic, satire.”
The work of Andy Warhol of the pop art movement, a rebellion to abstract expressionism, will also be on display for two days thanks to Seattle art collector Richard Weisman. Weisman, a friend of Warhol’s until his death in 1987, will loan 10 paintings, part of Warhol’s Athlete Series, to the museum on Saturday and Sunday. The paintings were unveiled in 1979 after Weisman encouraged Warhol to paint famous athletes in order to bridge two of the most popular leisure time activities of the time – painting and sports.
“I therefore thought that having Andy Warhol do the series would inspire people who loved sports to come into galleries, maybe for the first time, and people who liked art would take their first look at a sports superstar,” Weisman said in a museum press release.
Athletes include Muhammad Ali, O.J. Simpson, Jack Nicklaus, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Pele and Chris Evert. Weisman has also brought Warhol’s work to Washington State University Museum of Art in Pullman, Wash., and to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg, Pa.
Now on display until April 9 is artwork by 26 artists teaching in the University Department of Art. Called “Eye Contact,” it is the first faculty display since the museum was expanded. Mediums that are on display include painting, sculpture, ceramics, fibers, jewelry, metalsmithing, photography and digital arts.
“Contemporary Artists from the Netherlands” will be on display until March 19, showcasing 21 Dutch artists. The paintings, photos and sculptures were chosen by Toon Verhoef, a well-known Dutch painter and a visiting artist at the University Department of Art this term.
The museum is located at 1430 Johnson Lane on the University campus. The museum is open Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Thursdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. University students are admitted free with a student ID card.
 

 
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