Melissa Miller at the Grace Museum

Melissa Miller, The Ark, 1986, Oil on linen, two panels Overall 67 x 168 inches (170.2 x 426.2 cm) Collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum purchase, The Benjamin J. Tillar Memorial Trust, Acquired in 1986

No need to panic when you turn the corner of the second floor gallery at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and discover Melissa Miller‘s epic painting The Ark is MIA.  As of August 22, it’s gone, but not for long.  The museum has loaned it to Abilene’s Grace Museum for a major Melissa Miller exhibition that opens September 22 and runs through January 14, 2012. The Ark, considered to be among Miller’s magnum opus works, is one of the most popular paintings in the Modern’s collection and has been on display almost continuously since the museum opened in 2002. The Texas State Legislature named Miller the 2011 Texas State Visual Artist (2D).

The exhibition at the Grace, according to its curator Judy Tedford Deaton, will include 26 seminal paintings from Miller’s career, beginning in 1977 through 2010.  On loan from the Dallas Museum of Art is Day Sky and from the Blanton, Zebras and Hyenas.  The remainder of the paintings are from private collections.  The show will not travel after it closes in Abilene.

The Ark comes back home to the Modern in February 2012.  In the meantime, Jim Woodson‘s 7-foot by 9-foot oil painting, Lost Mine Trail (with Dim Tracers), goes up.   A TCU art professor, Woodson has been painting Big Bend canyon landscapes for more than twenty years.  The Modern purchased the painting in 2004 for its permanent collection.