A new season marks the launch of new exhibitions at art venues across Texas. Learn about shows coming to Houston-area art venues this spring.
Vitus Shell, “Red Saints #1,” 2023, acrylic on paper
Later this week the Galveston Arts Center kicks off the year with a solo show by Vitus Shell, a Louisiana-based mixed-media collage painter. Mr. Shell’s exhibition Study Long, Study Wrong, references a saying that encourages people not to overthink their actions. The artist uses the title as a challenge to self-doubt and his works showcase personal agency and empowerment. A reception will be held on Saturday, January 11 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., with an artist talk at 6:30 p.m. The exhibition will be on view through March 30.
John Constable, “A View on the Banks of the River Stour,” 1809–16, oil on paperboard, laid down on panel. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Stuart Collection, gift of Francita Stuart Koelsch Ulmer in memory of James Chillan, Jr., the first Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
This spring, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) will open four new exhibitions. Picturing Nature: The Stuart Collection of 18th- and 19th-Century British Landscapes and Beyond features more than 70 works and illustrates the evolution of the genre of landscape art. The exhibition includes watercolors, drawings, prints, and oil sketches by artists such as Richard Wilson, Thomas Gainsborough, John Robert Cozens, John Constable, and J.M.W. Turner. Picturing Nature will be on view from January 12 through July 6.
Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within is the first nationally touring retrospective of the artist’s work in 20 years. Ms. Takaezu is best known for her “closed form” ceramic sculptures, which ranged from small hand-held pieces to large installations. The exhibition features more than 100 works created over the artist’s 70-year career. Along with ceramic works, the show will include rarely seen paintings and weavings. Worlds Within will be on view from March 2 through May 18.
Also opening in March is Knights in Shining Armor: The Pavia Tapestries, which has seven weavings that depict scenes from the Battle of Pavia. The tapestries, each of which measures 28 feet by 14 feet, will be accompanied by a selection of 16th-century arms and armor. This exhibition marks the first time that these tapestries have been displayed together in the U.S. Knights in Shining Armor will be on view from March 2 through May 26.
This spring the MFAH will also present the first U.S. museum retrospective of Tamara de Lempicka’s work. Ms. Lempicka’s paintings celebrate the glamour of 1920s postwar Paris and the style of Hollywood celebrity. The show charts the artist’s career and life, beginning with her time in Paris and then the decade she spent in New York and Los Angeles. Along with her paintings, the exhibition showcases Ms. Lempicka’s drawings and studies, which reveal her artistic process.
In a press release, Gary Tinterow, Director and Margaret Alkek Williams Chair of the MFAH, stated, “Tamara de Lempicka took Paris by storm in the 1920s with paintings that united classicism and high modernism to create some of the most defining works of the Art Deco era. Her brilliant portraits and figure studies quickly captured the popular imagination across Europe and the United States, but her career was eclipsed by World War II.”
Tamara de Lempicka will be on view from March 9 through May 26.
Tiffany Chung, “stored in a jar: monsoon, drowning fish, color of water, and the floating world.” On view in “Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice” at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, Sep 14, 2024 – Jan 5, 2025. Photo: Sarah Golonka
Later this month, the Moody Center for the Arts will host the traveling exhibition Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice. The show was originally curated for the Hammer Museum by Glenn Kaino and Mika Yoshitake as part of the Getty Foundation’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative which seeks to create opportunities for dialogue around important issues facing society today. The Moody’s iteration of the exhibition will feature local and international artists, with some new works that respond directly to the local area.
Breath(e) will be on view from January 24 through May 10. An opening reception will take place on January 24 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. and artists Xin Liu, Tiffany Chung, and Cannupa Hanska Luger will be in attendance.
Joe Overstreet, “HooDoo Mandala,” 1970, acrylic on canvas with metal grommets and cotton rope, 90 × 89 1/2 inches. Neil Lane Collection
Also in January, the Menil Collection will open Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight, an exhibition that features the artist’s Flight Pattern series, alongside works made leading up to and following the series. Mr. Overstreet’s work combines abstraction with larger social politics using his materials to evoke both the history of violence against Black people in the U.S. and the notion of freedom.
Rebecca Rabinow, Director of the Menil Collection, remarked, “John and Dominique de Menil’s support of [Overstreet] began in the early 1970s when a painting was commissioned by him for an exhibition about the African American experience that the couple sponsored in Houston, Texas. Soon after, they purchased two of Overstreet’s Flight Pattern works and invited him back to Houston for a solo show. Now, some 50 years later, the Menil Collection looks forward to sharing his work with a new generation of visitors, both through this beautiful, thought-provoking exhibition, and the illustrated scholarly catalog that provides fascinating insight and context for the appreciation of this artist’s work.”
Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight will be on view from January 24 through July 13.
Later this spring, the Menil will debut What drawing can be: four responses, featuring site-specific installations by Jillian Conrad, Teresita Fernández, Tony Lewis, and Constantin Luser. Each artist will consider the potential of the medium of drawing and its connections to other art forms as they respond to the prompt “What drawing can be.” Existing pieces will be included alongside the new works and each artist will be presented in an individual gallery space. The exhibition will be on view from March 21 through August 10.
