Decorative Arms: Treasures from the Robert M. Lee Collection includes more than 190 objects dating from as early as the 1500s through the modern era that showcase the skills of some of the most renowned arms makers and engravers in the world. Featuring historical suits of armor, antique firearms, swords, and modern arms, the exhibition is drawn from the private collection of Mr. Robert M. Lee — known to an international community of enthusiasts as one of the finest arms collections in the United States.

The artistry of embellishing arms is one of the most challenging of all artistic endeavors, with a rich history that reaches back to the Medieval and Renaissance eras. The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to experience the artistry of talented arms engravers from England, Italy, Belgium, and the United States who incorporate historical decorative traditions into their craftsmanship today. The design process involves collaboration among sculptures of steel and wood, goldsmiths, silversmiths, and engravers. These talented artisans create mythological, hunting, and wildlife scenes that are enhanced by ornamental designs on what have often been described as “miniature canvases.”

This exhibition was organized by the Nevada Museum of Art with curatorial support from Conor Fitzgerald, Guy Wilson, and Signa Pendegraft.

To learn more about the exhibition and related programs, read the press release.

Lead Exhibition Sponsor

Whittier Trust, Investment & Wealth Management

Major Sponsors

The Bretzlaff Foundation
The Thelma B. and Thomas P. Hart Foundation
Reno-Sparks Convention & Visitors Authority

Sponsors

Anonymous
Clark/Sullivan Construction
John C. Deane
Jackson Family Foundation
Nevada Gold Mines
Jenny and Garrett Sutton | Corporate Direct

Supporting Sponsors

Debbie Day
Matt Day, Sr.
Tammy and Michael Dermody
Lance Gilman Commercial / Industrial Real Estate
Haynie & Company

Additional Sponsors

Anonymous

Media Sponsors

Western Art & Architecture
The Big Reno Show

Reno Engraver Spotlight: Guy Leutzinger

For many years, northern Nevadans entrusted their personal firearms to local engraver Guy Leutzinger (1903-1972) who built a worldwide reputation for his fine craftsmanship and high-quality engraving. An employee of R. Herz & Bro., a family-owned jewelry store owned and operated by Richard and Carl Otto Herz beginning in 1885, Leutzinger worked out of the shop’s Virginia Street storefront servicing the engraving needs of locals and tourists alike.  Leutzinger worked for R. Herz and Bros. from 1947 to 1965 while maintaining his own freelance engraving business. A selection of Leutzinger’s engraved firearms are on loan from his son, Reno resident, Robert Leutzinger.

This exhibition features 24 of Ann Johnston’s large-scale quilts inspired by the Sierra Nevada. Johnston’s quilts—made from cloth that the artist has dyed herself—make creative use of patterns and textures to create literal, abstract, and sometimes completely imaginative representations of the area. Using both machine and hand-stitching, the artist creates dimensional surfaces that reflect the varied geological makeup of the Sierra Nevada.

The collection of work presents subjects that visitors to the Sierra might recognize—bands of colors in the earth, mineral-rich rock layers that have been squeezed and heated over centuries, mountain peaks, lakes, and rock formations. “My creative process has involved both looking at what is there on the land at present, as well as trying to imagine events unseen,” the artist writes. This exhibit also features several new works created by Johnston in the past year.

Sponsors
Sandy Raffealli, in memory of Molly Meeker O’Dea
Volunteers in Art of the Nevada Museum of Art

Supporting Sponsors
Charles and Margaret Burback Foundation
Roger H. Elton

The Inside World: Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Memorial Poles from the Debra and Dennis Scholl Collection presents 94 works by contemporary Aboriginal artists from Arnhem Land. Traditionally, these poles—named lorrkkon in the west and larrakitj in the east —marked the final point in Aboriginal mortuary rites. They signified the moment when the spirit of the deceased had finally returned home—when they had left all vestiges of the mundane “outside” world, and become one with the “inside” world of the ancestral realm. Today, these poles are made as works of art.

The artists included in the exhibition are some of the most respected contemporary artists working in Australia today. These include John Mawurndjul, who was recently honored with a retrospective at the Museum Tinguely in Basel, and Djambawa Marawili, whose work has been included in the Moscow, Istanbul and Sydney Biennales. Yet, it is not art world acclaim that these artists seek. The power of their work comes from its desire to communicate the persistence and beauty of Aboriginal culture to the world, to scratch beneath the surface and show what hides there.

The Inside World is drawn from the collections of Miami-based collectors and philanthropists Debra and Dennis Scholl. The exhibition is the third touring exhibition of their Aboriginal art collections, following the successful exhibitions Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artist from Aboriginal Australia, and No Boundaries: Aboriginal Australian Contemporary Abstract Painting, which toured to 12 museums in North America. All three exhibitions are organized by the Nevada Museum of Art.

Book
Edited by Henry F. Skerritt with contributions by Murray Garde, Louise Hamby, Howard Morphy, Kimberley Moulton, Diana Nawi, Wukun Wanambi, and David Wickens, this book explores the complex histories of memorial poles in Australia.

Scientific naturalists at the dawn of the heroic age of scientific exploration observed and surveyed the farthest corners of the natural world. By necessity, they were artists as well as scientists, leveraging their skills in illustration, painting, poetry, and journaling to record their discoveries and share their passion.

By examining the practices of historically significant naturalists, like John James Audubon, we can begin to explore the ways in which these traditions influenced the next iteration of interdisciplinary thinking and learning. Contemporary artists such as Penelope Gottlieb, Kara Maria, and Donald Farnsworth pick up from where Audubon left off—in new, celebratory, and sometimes critical ways.

This exhibition is organized in conjunction with the 2019 NV STEAM Conference, a statewide education conference focused on ideas and strategies that incorporate Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math education into innovative classroom practices that foster student creativity and innovation. The NV STEAM Conference is presented in partnership with the Desert Research Institute’s Science Alive program and supported by the Nevada Department of Education and the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council.

Major Sponsor

Mario J. Gabelli, CEO Gabelli Funds

Sponsor

Nancy and Ron Remington

Since 1999, Northern Nevada middle and high school students have been invited to submit their artwork to the Scholastic Art Awards competition. The Museum’s annual presentation of the Scholastic Art Awards is scheduled in conjunction with the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, a national program designed to identify America’s most gifted young artists and writers. This program has honored some of our nation’s most celebrated artists including Truman Capote, Sylvia Plath, Michael Sarich, Cindy Sherman, Robert Redford and Andy Warhol.

This year 2,282 submissions were evaluated by a panel of judges made up of local artists and art professionals. Exceptional works were awarded Gold Key, Silver Key, or Honorable Mentions. Gold Key artwork advances to compete in the national Scholastic Art Awards competition. Select Gold Key works will be shown in an exhibition at the Holland Project Gallery at 140 Vesta Street in Reno February 22 through March 15, 2019. American Visions Nominees will be displayed concurrently in the Donald W Reynolds Grand Hall at the Museum.

2019 N. NV Awards

Sponsors

City of Reno Arts & Culture Commission
NV Energy
Nell J. Redfield Foundation

Supporting Sponsors

Wild Women Artists

EVENTS:

2019 Scholastic Art Awards Gold Key Exhibition Opening Reception at the Holland Project
Friday, February 22, 2019 / 6 – 8 pm

Join us in celebrating the Gold Key award-winning students of 2019 and the opening of their exhibition at the Holland Project gallery at 140 Vesta Street in Reno. FREE Admission

2019 Scholastic Art Awards Ceremony at the Nevada Museum of Art
Thursday, March 14, 2019 / 6 – 7:30 pm

We invite Gold and Silver Key award-winning students to be honored during this special ceremony at the Museum attended by family, teachers, friends, and members of the community.

All invited guests are required to RSVP to Jacque Dawson by March 1, 2019 to attend. Due to limited space, Gold and Silver Key award-winning students may RSVP with up to two guests and educators may bring one guest. FREE Admission

Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern takes a new look at how the renowned modernist artist proclaimed her progressive, independent lifestyle through a self-crafted public persona—including her clothing and the way she posed for the camera. The exhibition expands our understanding of O’Keeffe by focusing on her wardrobe, shown for the first time alongside key paintings and photographs. It confirms and explores her determination to be in charge of how the world understood her identity and artistic values.

In addition to selected paintings and items of clothing, the exhibition presents photographs of O’Keeffe and her homes by Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams, Philippe Halsman, Yousuf Karsh, Cecil Beaton, Andy Warhol, Bruce Weber, Todd Webb, and others.

The exhibition is organized in sections that run from her early years, when O’Keeffe crafted a signature style of dress that dispensed with ornamentation; to her years in New York, in the 1920s and 1930s, when a black-and-white palette dominated much of her art and dress; and to her later years in New Mexico, where her art and clothing changed in response to the surrounding colors of the Southwestern landscape. The final section explores the enormous role photography played in the artist’s reinvention of herself in the Southwest, when a younger generation of photographers visited her, solidifying her status as a pioneer of modernism and as a contemporary style icon.

Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern is organized by the Brooklyn Museum, New York, and curated by Wanda M. Corn, Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor Emerita in Art History, Stanford University. The Nevada Museum of Art is the only venue in the western United States to host the exhibition.

#okeeffemodern

Lead Sponsor
Wayne and Rachelle Prim

Major Sponsors
Nancy and Harvey Fennell | Dickson Realty
The Jacquie Foundation

Sponsors
Denise and Tim Cashman
The Thelma B. and Thomas P. Hart Foundation
I. Heidi Loeb Hegerich
J. P. Morgan Private Bank
Nancy and Brian Kennedy
Linda and Alvaro Pascotto
Sandy Raffealli | Bill Pearce Motors
Elizabeth and Henry Thumann
Emily and Joe Wieczorek

Supporting Sponsors
Anonymous
The Chica Charitable Gift Fund
Jan and David Hardie
Charlotte and Dick McConnell
Mulvaney Family
Enid Oliver, ChFC, Private Wealth Advisor with Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc.

Additional Support
Elaine Cardinale
Linda D. Frye

Media Sponsor
Tahoe Quarterly

We may not always realize it, but art helps us change the way we see ourselves. That is why when artist Trevor Paglen imagined launching a reflective, nonfunctional satellite into low Earth orbit, the Nevada Museum of Art understood that his artistic gesture could help to change the way humanity sees our place in the world.

Orbital Reflector is a sculpture constructed of a lightweight polyethylene material that looks like thin plastic. It is housed in a small box-like infrastructure known as a CubeSat that will be launched into space on board a rocket. Once in orbit, about 350 miles from Earth, the CubeSat will open and release the sculpture that will self-inflate like a balloon. Reflective titanium dioxide powder coats the inside of the sculpture, so that sunlight reflects off of it, making it visible from Earth with the naked eye — like a slowly moving artificial star as bright as a star in the Big Dipper.

The Nevada Museum of Art and Trevor Paglen worked with the aerospace engineering firm Global Western to design and manufacture Orbital Reflector. Spaceflight Industries arranged for the launch of Orbital Reflector on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.  As the twenty-first century unfolds and gives rise to unsettled global tensions, Orbital Reflector encourages all of us to look up at the night sky with a renewed sense of wonder, to consider our place in the universe, and to reimagine how we live together on this planet.

To learn more about the project, visit orbitalreflector.com.

#OrbitalReflector

Trevor Paglen: Orbital Reflector, co-produced and presented by the Nevada Museum of Art. The archive materials generated from the Orbital Reflector project will become part of the archive collections of the Museum’s Center for Art + Environment. Trevor Paglen: Orbital Reflector, co-produced and presented by the Nevada Museum of Art, will cost $1.3 million over the project’s three-year span.

Title Sponsor

Blockchains, LLC

Premier Sponsors

I. Heidi Loeb Hegerich

Switch

Louise A. Tarble Foundation

Lead Sponsors

Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation

The Jacquie Foundation

Piper Stremmel and Chris Reilly

Major Sponsors

Barrick Gold

Charles and Margaret Burback Foundation

The Fisher Brothers

Nion McEvoy

RBC Wealth Management and City National Bank

Sponsors

Sandy and Steven Hardie

Supporting Sponsors

Karyn and Lance Tendler

Additional Support

Henry Moore Foundation (UK)

Exclusive sponsorship for the Orbital Reflector installation and lead sponsorship for the Museum’s STEAM education programs is provided by Switch.

Additional support provided by the 557 backers of this project’s Kickstarter campaign.

Like a blind date, In Conversation stages an encounter between two people who never met but whose work and lives share a deep affinity. The work of Alma Allen and J.B. Blunk blurs the line between design and sculpture, with both men creating evocative organic work from natural materials. It also draws a line between contemporary practice and the mid-century when Blunk began his practice.

Alma Allen (b. 1970) is a sculptor and designer who until recently was based in Joshua Tree, California. His early work includes small, tabletop-scaled objects such as bowls, trays, and vessels in wood and cast bronze. Organic and talisman-like, these small objects eventually led Allen to the much larger work he makes today. Elegant and amorphous, and sculpted from marble, travertine, bronze, and walnut, Allen’s current work is made with the assistance of a giant robotic arm.

Pairing Allen’s work with that of J.B. Blunk (1926–2002), the Northern Californian artist and designer who seems an obvious precursor and inspiration to the younger sculptor, establishes a dialogue between two sympathetic voices. Blunk began making work in 1962—mainly furniture and sculpture in redwood and cypress, some of which is monumental in scale. He also worked in clay, stone, and cast bronze, and like Allen, his work blurs the line between furniture, functional objects, and sculpture. Blunk’s work is also organic in nature but has a rougher, more rustic quality since his tool of choice was a chainsaw and he wasn’t interested in polishing his pieces, preferring a more natural aesthetic. Both men designed and built their own homes as well as many of the furnishings and objects in them.

In addition to small early pieces, large-scale works, and process models, the exhibition features photographs of the homes and studios of both Allen and Blunk, creating a parallel conversation between the work and point of view of two contemporary photographers, Lisa Eisner and Leslie Williamson.

“In Conversation: Alma Allen and J.B. Blunk” is organized by Palm Springs Art Museum and curated by Brooke Hodge.

Sponsors Barbara and Tad Danz

The Art of Jack Malotte will be on view in Elko, Nevada, at the Western Folklife Center, July 10 through mid-December 2020.

Jack Malotte makes artworks that celebrate the landscapes of the Great Basin, with a unique focus on contemporary political issues faced by Native people seeking to protect and preserve access to their lands. Malotte infuses wry humor into his work, even as he delves into subject matter that is sometimes serious and sobering. Malotte’s most recent work reconsiders historical narratives and myths of the American West, refers to Western Shoshone and Washoe traditions and legends, and highlights longtime political, environmental, and legal struggles of Native communities.

For many years Malotte produced graphics and illustrations for the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples, Inc., the Western Shoshone Sacred Lands Association, and the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice. This work will be on view alongside drawings, sketches, and prints from early in his career.  During his exhibition at the Nevada Museum of Art, Malotte will complete an outdoor, public mural on an exterior wall of the building.

Malotte was born in Schurz, Nevada, lived in Lee, Nevada as a young boy, and eventually moved to Reno where he attended local schools including Wooster High School. At the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California (1971-74), he was influenced by the work of Arthur Okamura, Jack Mendenhall, and Chuck Close. Malotte also worked as a U.S. Forest Service Firefighter. Malotte, who is Western Shoshone and Washoe, currently resides in Duckwater, Nevada, a rural community located in central Nevada. He is an enrolled member of the South Fork Band of the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone.

The Nevada Museum of Art published a 240-page, hardcover book in conjunction with the exhibition, with an essay by Ann M. Wolfe, Andrea and John C. Deane Family Senior Curator and Deputy Director; and contributions from Ben Aleck, Dr. Victoria Bomberry, Allan L. Edmunds, Bob Fulkerson, Debra Harry, Ph.D, Jean LaMarr, Sheila Leslie, Dr. Sharon Malotte, Arlan D. Melendez, and Virginia “DeDee” Sanchez. Visit shop.nevadaart.org to purchase The Art of Jack Malotte book.

Major Sponsors
The Satre Family Fund at the Community Foundation of Western Nevada

Sponsors
Nevada Arts Council
Sandy Raffealli | Bill Pearce Motors

Supporting Sponsors
Anonymous
Kathie Bartlett
National Endowment for the Arts

Media Sponsors
KUNR Reno Public Radio
Sierra Nevada Media Group

This major retrospective exhibition rediscovers and celebrates the work of Anne Brigman (1869-1950), who is best known for her iconic landscape photographs made in the early 1900s depicting herself and other female nudes outdoors in the Sierra Nevada. Brigman’s photography was considered radical for its time. To objectify her own nude body as the subject of her photographs at the turn of the twentieth century was groundbreaking; to do so outdoors in a near-desolate wilderness setting was revolutionary. Although the term feminist art was not coined until nearly seventy years after Brigman made her first photographs, the suggestion that her camera gave her the power to redefine her place as a woman in society establishes her as an important forerunner in the field.

Brigman’s significance spanned both coasts: in Northern California, where she lived, she was known as a poet, a critic, a proponent of the Arts & Crafts philosophy, and a member of the Pictorialist photography movement. On the East Coast, her work was promoted by Alfred Stieglitz, who elected her as a fellow of the prestigious Photo-Secession. From 1903 to 1944 Anne Brigman maintained ongoing correspondence with Alfred Stieglitz, exchanging nearly 100 letters during this time. Brigman is also noted for her honest art criticism and opinioned voice on cultural and fine art topics, and as a published poet.

This exhibition, the largest ever undertaken, brings together over 300 works spanning the entirety of Brigman’s career from the collections of Michael Wilson and the Wilson Centre for Photography in London, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the George Eastman Museum, the Oakland Museum of California, MoMA, New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and many private collections.

The exhibition is curated by Ann M. Wolfe, Andrea and John C. Deane Family Senior Curator and Deputy Director at the Nevada Museum of Art.

Due to its popularity, this previously sold-out book is now available in second edition. Co-published by the Nevada Museum of Art and Rizzoli Electa this 400-page, heavily illustrated book is a must have for lovers of photography, nature, and the High Sierra. Visit shop.nevadaart.org to purchase.

#ConfrontingTradition

Lead Sponsor

Wayne and Miriam Prim

Major Sponsors

The Bretzlaff Foundation; Carol Franc Buck Foundation; the Satre Family Fund at the Community Foundation of Western Nevada; Louise A. Tarble Foundation

Sponsors

Carole K. Anderson; Barbara and Tad Danz; Nancy and Harvey Fennell | Dickson Realty; Nancy and Brian Kennedy; Mercedes-Benz of Reno, an AutoNation Company; Whittier Trust, Investment & Wealth Management

Supporting Sponsors

Brigid S. Barton; Denise Cashman; the Chica Charitable Gift Fund; Mimi Ellis-Hogan; Jan and David Hardie; the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation; Keith and Sheila McWilliams; Eleanor and Robert Preger; Jenny and Garrett Sutton | Corporate Direct, Inc.; Lash and Gigi Turville

Additional Support

Kathie Bartlett; John C. Deane

Media Sponsors

Getaway Reno-Tahoe; KUNR Reno Public Radio; Reno News & Review; Reno-Tahoe International Airport; Tahoe Quarterly; The Believer powered by the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute; Western Art & Architecture