ARLIS/TXMX - Annual Meeting: Tours

Annual Meeting 2007: Webb Art Gallery Tour, Waxahachie

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:23:50 -0500

Tour of Webb Art Gallery, Waxahachie, Saturday, October 27, 2007

Webb Art Gallery, the 1987 love child of Bruce and Julie Webb, bursts at the seams with self-taught painting and sculpture, tramp art, fraternal lodge items, sideshow banners (“Two Noses” anyone?), and general strangeness. I loved it, and bought a trio of collages by an as-yet-unidentified architect. There were reports of other purchases and near-purchases. For those who could not attend, the Webb Art Gallery is a kind of cross between Austin’s Yard Dog Folk Art and the incomparable Uncommon Objects. Among the artists represented are Chelo Gonzalez Amezcua, Ike Morgan, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Reverend Johnny Swearingen, and Dan Phillips. It is well worth a return trip.

Annual Meeting 2007: Waxahachie Tour

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:20:50 -0500

Tour of Waxahachie, Texas, Saturday, October 27, 2007

Margaret Culbertson led members on a tour of Waxahachie’s downtown square and a historic residential district. Ms. Culbertson, a former resident of Waxahachie, is currently the Director of the Hirsch Library at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

The tour began at the Rogers Hotel, a Prairie Style hotel of reinforced concrete. It was designed by architect C.D. Hill in 1912. After two hotels on the site burned down, the Rogers was designed to be as fire-resistant as possible.

The hotel anchors one corner of the courthouse square. The Ellis County Courthouse stands at the center of that square. It was designed by James Riely Gordon, though his association is somewhat accidental. The contractor, Otto Kroeger was hired to construct the courthouse and sold Ellis County the plans of his business associate, Gordon. It is unlikely that Gordon visited Waxahachie during the design process or building construction. He had earlier devised five courthouse plans that could be customized by government contractors. Construction progress was reported daily in the local newspaper. The carved stonework on the Richardsonian Romanesque courthouse is a highlight of the building. Carving was supervised by Harry Herley, a German craftsman who emigrated to Texas in 1890. A local legend that the carved faces chronicle Herley’s unrequited love affair persists. The uglification of the faces supposedly mirrors Herley’s increasing dissatisfaction with a local girl which did not return his affection. The accuracy of this legend cannot be confirmed, however.

Annual Meeting 2007: Hamon Arts Library Tour, Southern Methodist University

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:05:09 -0500

Tour of the Hamon Arts Library, Southern Methodist University, Friday, October 26, 2007

Members of the ARLIS TX/MX chapter attended a tour of the Hamon Arts Library at Southern Methodist University given by Beverly Mitchell, the library’s Fine Arts and Dance Librarian. The tour began with an introduction to Hamon’s Special Collections where Dr. Sam Ratcliffe, Head of Special Collections, displayed some examples of the artwork and documents for the then upcoming Meadows Museum exhibition, Jerry Bywaters: Interpreter of the Southwest & Lone Star Printmaker,. Bywaters was a professor of art at SMU and director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, now the Dallas Museum of Art. Several of his works and archives, which Bywaters bequeathed to Hamon, comprise the nucleus of this exhibition. This exhibition runs from November 30th, 2007-March 2nd, 2008. Dr. Ratcliffe also took chapter members into the vault where he showed and discussed other special holdings of the library, including model drawings by Bywaters for post office murals in west Texas and the archives of Greer Garson.

Annual Meeting 2007: Pam Nelson Art Gallery Tour

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:31:22 -0500

Tour of the gallery of Pam Nelson, Saturday, October 27, 2007

Pamela Nelson, local artist and teacher graciously allowed us to tour her downtown loft home and studio on Saturday morning. Pam (as the whole world calls her) is also a member of the U. S. Commission of Fine Arts, and began the very successful homeless art classes in a downtown church. Since many of us were late, she and member Beverly Mitchell, were standing outside to usher us into an old office building near the central Dallas Public Library that she has turned into three large condominiums. Two are for rent and she and her husband use the top floor for themselves.

Annual Meeting 2007: Dallas Museum of Art Library Tour

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:38:09 -0500

Tour of Dallas Arts District, Thursday, October 25, 2007

The ARLIS Texas-Mexico group met at the lobby of the Warwick Melrose Hotel and headed to the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) for a self-guided tour. On Thursdays, the DMA is open late and has live music. While live jazz was playing in the dining area, a group of us walked up to tour the Mildred R. and Frederick M. Mayer Library.

Texas State University San Marcos librarians Karen Sigler, Selene Hinojosa, and Tara Spies in front of the Mayer Library at the DMA.

Librarians Mary Leonard and Jacqueline Allen gave us a brief tour and answered our questions. The library has over 55,000 titles and is still growing. They serve the public and the curatorial staff at the DMA. They have two reference areas and their collection is mainly focused on art reference materials, periodicals and serials. They also have artist files. The current library was built in 1991 with the renovation of the DMA. After the tour, we were on our own to explore the DMA galleries, the Nasher Sculpture Center, and the Crow Collection of Asian Art. We met for dinner at the Nasher Sculpture Center and went on a wonderful tour of the downtown arts district with Gwen Dixie.

Annual Meeting 2007: Dallas Arts District Tour

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:30:33 -0500

Tour of Dallas Arts District, Thursday, October 27, 2007

The 2007 ARLIS/NA Texas-Mexico Chapter Annual Meeting in Dallas got off to a great start with a leisurely ramble through the Raymond Nasher Sculpture Center. The “Nasher,” designed by architect Renzo Piano and landscape architect Peter Walker opened in 2003. The museum and garden consists entirely of modern and contemporary sculpture. Of particular note is the building’s roof, an engineering marvel designed by the London-based architectural consulting firm Arup. Their engineers plotted the sun's yearly path across the Dallas sky and then created a protective ‘sunscreen’ consisting of over a half-million aluminum ‘shells’ that deflect the sun’s damaging rays while flooding the galleries with natural sunlight.

Annual Meeting 2007: Fair Park Tour

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:23:22 -0600

Tour of Fair Park, Friday, October 26, 2007

What a treat! Brad Hamilton was the most amazing tour guide. His passion for the Texas State Fair and Fair Park was obvious. Fair Park was the site of the first World’s Fair in the Southwest, which took place in 1936. Fair Park has marvelous art deco structures, murals, and sculptures. Bob Thorton and George Dahl lobbied to get the World’s Fair in Dallas in 1936 for the Texas Centennial. Each building has a rich history. For example the first public radio station in Texas was in the annex building on the Fair Park grounds. Brad told us so many interesting tidbits.

Annual Meeting 2006: Wittliff Gallery and Iturbide Exhibition

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 18:35:32 -0600

On October 21st, 2006, the ARLIS/NA Texas-Mexico Chapter visited the Special Collections area of the Alkek Library at Texas State University in San Marcos Texas. As you have already read, we visited the entire Special Collections area which includes the Southwest Writer’s Collection, Special Collections Archives, and the Wittliff Gallery of Southwestern and Mexican Photography. Our hostess for this part of the tour was Carla Ellard, Assistant Curator of the photographic and book collection, which all focus on Mexican and Southwestern photography and photographers.

Annual Meeting 2006: Magic Lantern Castle Tour

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 10:10:19 -0600

Magic Lantern Castle Interior

On Saturday, October 21 at 4:00 p.m., the group met at the Magic Lantern Castle, where we were greeted by owner/curator Jack Judson. Mr. Judson gave us a chance to walk around and look at his beautifully presented Magic Lantern collection before we were seated. He spoke about the history of his collection. He told us that he'd bought his first lantern slide projector in London in 1986 and the collection has grown to 75,000 items, including 65,000 lantern slides. He opened the Magic Lantern Castle museum in 1992; it is accessible by appointment only for private tours and researchers.

Annual Meeting 2006: Harry Ransom Center Visual Materials Presentation

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 16:52:08 -0600

Meeting held Friday, October 20, 2006. 10-11:30 a.m.

This year’s progressive conference was rich with interesting and informative tours. What better way to warm the trail than with the incredible visual materials found at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The HRC Web site identifies the collections as “one of the world's finest cultural archives ... [which] houses 36 million literary manuscripts, one million rare books, five million photographs, and over 100,000 works of art.”

Annual Meeting 2006: Blanton Museum of Art Tours

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 19:05:52 -0600

Tour held Friday, October 20, 2006

Tours de force is perhaps the best way to describe the expert and enthusiastic Blanton Museum of Art tours by Blanton curators Kelly Baum and Jonathan Bober. Kelly focused on the collections of modern and contemporary American and Latin American art, while Jonathan concentrated on the major exhibition of Luca Cambiaso, which he co-curated. The following are among the highlights they provided.

The Blanton Museum of Art opened in 2006 after a quarter-century of planning, designing, and fundraising. Designed by Kallmann McKinnell & Wood Architects to complement existing buildings, the museum houses some 17,000 works of art, with only a fraction on display at any given time. There are four main departments: prints and drawings, European art, twentieth-century Latin American art, and American art. With virtually no acquisitions budget, the Blanton has relied on major donations which include the James and Mari Michener Collection of American Art, the Barbara Duncan Collection of Latin American Art, the C.R. Smith Collection of Western Art, the Suida-Manning Collection of Renaissance and Baroque Art, and the Leo Steinberg Collection of Prints.

Annual Meeting 2006: Southwestern Writers Collection, Texas State University

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 12:58:29 -0600

ARLIS/NA Texas-Mexico members reconvened on the morning of Saturday, October 21, for breakfast and tours and information sessions about the Southwestern Writers Collection and the Wittliff Gallery of Southwestern and Mexican Photography. These two collections, along with the University Archives, comprise the Special Collections at Texas State University. The Southwestern Writers Collection and Wittliff Gallery are housed on the 7th floor of the Alkek Library.

This year, the Southwestern Writers Collection and Wittliff Gallery are celebrating their 20th and 10th anniversaries respectively. These collections have been housed in the Alkek Library since 1991 when the Library opened. Katie Salzmann, Archivist at the Southwestern Writers Collection, provided an excellent overview and summary of the Writers Collection. She began by showing us a ten minute video introducing the Special Collections at Texas State. In addition, she lead the group on an outstanding behind-the-scenes tour of the facility’s preservation and processing areas.

1999 Annual Meeting Tours Reports

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 09:37:30 -0500

Tours
October 7, 1999

Shared Resources: a Conservation Department for Museums in the Cultural District Claire

Barry, Chief Conservator, and Isabelle Tokumaru, Associate Conservator at the Kimbell Art Museum (KAM) provided us with a guided tour of the Conservation Department. We viewed facilities, equipment, work-in- process, and before and after photographs showing us the breadth of their work. Claire Barry is a graduate of the Art Conservation program at Cooperstown; she came to the KAM in 1985 after working at the Metropolitan Museum. Isabelle Tokumaru graduated from the Art Conservation program at NYU, and joined the KAM in 1995 after an internship at the Met.

Southwest Collections/Special Collections and Lubbock Lake Landmark Tours

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 20:00:21 -0500

Southwest Collections/Special Collections Building Tour

Bruce Cammack, Rare Books Librarian, gave the tour of the Southwest Collections/Special Collections building at Texas Tech University Libraries. The tour began with the permanent and rotating exhibitions, featuring the Southwest Collection, Southwest Conference, the Archives for the Vietnam Conflict, the West Texas Historical Association, and Special Collections/Rare Book collections. Unfortunately, the 1688 Coronelli Globe, which has recently undergone restoration, had not yet been placed on display in the exhibition case in the central rotunda.

ARLIS/TX Group Tours the Museum of Texas Tech University

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:58:21 -0500

The ARLIS/Texas 1998 conference attendees enjoyed a tour of the main building of the Museum of Texas Tech University (Lubbock) on Friday afternoon, Oct. 16. Elizabeth Locke was our guide for the tour. The museum is an educational, scientific, cultural and research element of Texas Tech University and includes the Moody Planetarium, the Ranching Heritage Center, the research and educational elements of the Lubbock Lake Landmark, the Natural Science Research Laboratory, the Val Verde County Research Site and the Goodman Cotton Gin.

Highlights of the tour included an exhibition of the strikingly unique nature-inspired paintings of Robert Bissell and an exhibition on the tradition of landscape photography featuring the work of Ansel Adams and Laura Gilpin. The museum’s main gallery also has on display beautiful life-size casts of specimens of a Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus Rex in an encounter that may have occurred 65 million years ago. Also of interest were the galleries of Pre- Columbian Art, Ethnohistory, African Art, the Taos Art Gallery, the Lubbock Gallery and the Paleontology Hall.