News Release
TERRE HAUTE —
2013 Year Of The River celebrations continue at the Swope Art Museum with the museum’s spring feature exhibition, “Rivers to Oceans: Selections from the Indiana State University Permanent Art Collection,” featuring artistic impressions of water and surrounding life. “Rivers to Oceans” is on view Friday through March 9, in the museum’s Haslem and Hodge galleries.
The Swope invited Indiana State University curator Barbara Räcker to be the guest curator for an exhibition of river- and water-themed work from the extensive ISU collection.
“Rivers to Oceans” presents a survey of 51 works of art from ISU’s collection that depict natural bodies of water and the associated commerce, wildlife and recreational activity. The exhibition encompasses work from the late 1800s to present. The majority of works, however, date to the 1930s and 1940s, including 19 works from ISU’s Works Progress Administration collection.
“Rivers to Oceans” includes several works by artists with local ties, such as Miriam Brentlinger, Paul Ashby and Palmer Holmes. Regional artists are also represented with Homer Davisson, Marikay Peter Witlock and Maryann Robertson. Artists with national and international reputations who are represented in the exhibition include Stuart Davis and René Magritte, as well the contemporary Chinese artist Aisong Jiang.
The exhibition is divided into four thematic sections: Water, Land and Wildlife; Commerce; Recreation; and Social Commentary. Among the works on display, “Shapes of Landscape Space” (1937), a lithograph by Stuart Davis, is in the Commerce section, and “Coalopolis” (2009), an acrylic painting by Ralph Larmann, is in Social Commentary.
The Swope will host an opening reception that will feature gallery talks by Räcker at 7 and 8 p.m. on Friday.
Admission is free.
