Honoring 15 Years of Neddy Artist Fellows

On view through August 22, 2010

In 1995 the Behnke Foundation established the Neddy Artist Fellowship as a memorial to Robert E. (Ned) Behnke (1948–1989). Ned Behnke was a prolific painter and vital force within the artist community of the Northwest. The Neddy Artist Fellowship is an unrestricted cash award to a Northwest artist who demonstrates artistic excellence, innovation, and unique vision, and a passionate commitment to their art and community.

The fellowship is one of the few large awards granted to visual artists in the Northwest. Originally conceived as an award for painters, the Behnke Foundation soon expanded the fellowship to recognize sculptors, printmakers, and photographers.

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the fellowship, Tacoma Art Museum will present a dual exhibition, featuring works by both nominees for the Neddy Artist Fellowship in painting and glass as well as the previous 23 Fellows.

The nominees for 2010 are Ken Kelly, Margie Livingston, Matthew Offenbacher, and Joey Veltkamp for painting; and Sabrina Knowles and Jenny Pohlman, Dante Marioni, Richard Marquis, and Marvin Oliver in glass. Organized by Tacoma Art Museum.

Where Sky Meets Earth:
The Luminous Landscapes of Victoria Adams
Northwest Perspectives Series

July 10 through October 3, 2010

This monographic survey presents the work of Victoria Adams, a Vashon, Washington, landscape painter equally committed to the landscape tradition and the creation of exquisite scenes that address the contemporary desire for the Sublime. Adams depicts idealized landscapes that evoke virgin terrain, untouched by human intervention and devoid of degradation.

Through her reworking of landscape traditions and conventions, her paintings present a vision of the landscape that unleashes the persistence of the Sublime in contemporary culture. Adams’s paintings evoke the deep desire for the perfect moment and they also evoke the psychological impact of the idealized landscape, both of which have been deeply conditioned in American culture. Organized by Tacoma Art Museum.

The Movement of Impressionism:
Europe, America, and the Northwest

On view through February 6, 2011

In celebration of our 75th anniversary year, Tacoma Art Museum has organized a series of exhibitions featuring many of the gems of the permanent collection supplemented with key loans. Leading off the series is an exhibition of paintings, prints, and sculpture that explores the varied forms impressionism took as it moved from Europe to America and into the Northwest.

Included are works by well-known French impressionists including Degas, Renoir, and Pissarro, as well as other impressionists from Europe and America, such as Childe Hassam, Joaquin Sorolla, and William Glackens. Northwest artists include Abby Hill, C. C. McKim, and John Davidson Butler, among others. Organized by Tacoma Art Museum.

Always on view

In celebration of world-renowned glass artist and Tacoma-native Dale Chihuly, we are giving our extensive permanent collection of Chihuly glass a gallery of its own. This July, all of the Chihuly in the museum’s collection (with the exception of Ma Chihuly’s Floats, which are installed in the interior courtyard) will be tenderly moved into the Bill and Bobby Street Gallery.

In 1971, Tacoma Art Museum was the first museum in the region to present a juried exhibition of glass art. Since then the museum has continued to collect and display extraordinary glass works from Northwest artists.

In 1990, Dale Chihuly presented Tacoma Art Museum with a gift of more than 30 sculptures and drawings in honor of his father and brother. He has continued to help build the museum’s collection. Today, Tacoma boasts more installations of Chihuly’s artwork than any other city in the world.