The Stark Museum of Art presents special changing exhibitions to explore themes in greater depth or with new approaches. Special exhibitions offer an opportunity to view an individual artist’s art in concentration or to delve into a topic. These rotating exhibitions have traditionally come from the Stark Museum’s permanent collections. Future exhibitions will continue to use the Museum’s resources, while also including loans from other museums and private collections.
Currently on view
“A Noble Pastime: Hunting Pictures from the Collection of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation” features a subject that is familiar to Stark Museum attendees—that of hunting, but from a different perspective, the European historic view of hunting. The hunt has been a pervasive theme in western art and literature since the time of ancient Greece.
“A Noble Pastime: Hunting Pictures from the Collection of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation” has 56 works of art including paintings, prints, illustrated rare books, and a decorative arts object. Artists include Jacques Callot, Willem van Aelst, George Stubbs, and many other French, Dutch, British, German, and Flemish artists. Portraits of hunting dogs and a hunter’s horse show the importance of animals to the enjoyment of the hunting adventure and to the success of the hunt. Works in the exhibition feature falconry, the use of trained hawks to hunt prey. Educational additions to the exhibition include an audio tour, a scavenger hunt, and a reading area. The exhibition is a loan from the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston, Texas.
Add a splash of color to your summer with a visit to the Stark Museum of Art’s Community Art Gallery exhibition “Welcome to Color: Stark Cultural Venues Coloring Book” on view from May 27 through October 28. The exhibition features original contour line drawings created by SMA Teaching Artist Karen Leonard that highlight the unique locations and collections at the Stark Museum of Art, The W.H. Stark House, Stark Park, Lutcher Theater, and Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center. Visitors can also enjoy a time-lapse video of the artist creating one of the drawings from beginning to end, view over-sized special edition prints colored by visitors to the museum in 2022 and 2023 and pick-up copies of this year’s coloring sheets to work on at home.
Click here to download your coloring book.
The Guinness World Records® certified largest published book in the world, “I Am Texas” is on view in our lobby through July 29. An ode to Texas from the perspective of a child, the seven-foot-tall book captures what the Lone Star State means to 1,000 young Texans in third through 12th grade from more than 80 school districts through stories, poetry and artwork. The exhibition features 12 Southeast Texas student artists and authors.
“The Art of Edgewater Tapestry Looms”
September 7, 2022 – Extended to July 15, 2023
This exhibit of tapestries coordinates with “A Noble Pastime: Hunting Pictures from the Collection of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation.” The art form of tapestry thrived during the time period of “A Noble Pastime.” The American revival of tapestries then drew inspiration from European art. The subject of hunting found expression in a Kleiser weaving. He used other related themes such as the leisure activities of the nobility and the outdoors.
(image) Lorentz Kleiser (1879 – 1963), artist, Edgewater Tapestry Looms (c. 1913 – 1933), manufacturer, “The Boar Hunt,” undated, woven wool with vegetable dyes, 50 1/2 × 80 1/2 inches, Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas, Gift of Margaret A. Benckenstein, 2018, 2018.7.1
“Steuben Glass: Stories Engraved in Crystal”
Ongoing from April 5, 2023
This exhibition features clear crystal Steuben Glass.Frederick Carter founded Steuben in 1903. Under Carter, the company produced glassware in a variety of colors. During the Great Depression, Steuben suffered from lack of sales for its glassware.
(image) Tom Lea (1907 – 2001), engraving designer, Lloyd Atkins (1922 – 2002), glass designer, Steuben Glass (founded 1903), manufacturer, “Trail Driver,” 1959, engraved crystal, 11 3/4 × 10 × 10 inches, Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas, Bequest of H.J. Lutcher Stark, 1965, 41.8.4.A&B