An American View: The Hosek Collection of American Art

The Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts, Spring, Texas, announces the world premier of An American View: The Hosek Collection of American Art, August 22-December 20, 2009. American Visions showcases over sixty works from the private Hosek Collection in oils, watercolors, and pastels. The Collection is particularly strong in American women artists and artists and illustrators of the late 19th and the 20th centuries, including Norman Rockwell, N. C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth, Frank X. Leyendecker, Lilly Martin Spencer, and Anna Mary Robertson ?Grandma? Moses. The exhibition explores the themes of illustrators and illustration, genre scenes, figural imagery, and American and Texas landscapes, including the outstanding ?bluebonnet paintings? by Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973), ?dean? of Texas bluebonnet painters, and Robert William Wood (1889-1979). A poignant N.C. Wyeth, The Young Charles Lindbergh, c. 1931, is one highlight of the works of the illustrators, while Norman Rockwell?s reworking of his earlier theme of boys chased from a swimming hole in No Swimming, c. 1953, shows the surprising pathos and insight the artist could bring to his magazine covers. The exhibition is jointly curated by Mr. Chip Hosek and by Timothy Novak, Executive Director of the Pearl Fincher. Mr. Novak was previously Curator of the Bill and Irma Runyon Collections of American and English art, and Director of the MSC Forsyth Center Galleries, Texas A&M University, where he also served as adjunct faculty. In its first year the Pearl borrowed for exhibit from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) collections, as part of a long-term agreement with that museum: American Western artist and illustrator Frederic Remingon; African gold from the Glassell Collection; and 17th and 18th century European paintings from the collection of Sarah Campbell Blaffer, a long-term patron of the arts in Texas. The Pearl also organized exhibitions on contemporary metalworking, 19th and 20th century art glass, watercolor artist Rob Erdle, and Texas maritime art, the latter jointly with the Texas Seaport Museum. Over 17,500 visitors, including over 6,000 schoolchildren, toured the Pearl in its first twelve months. For American Visions, the Pearl has organized a HeART of America arts festival (October 9-10, 2009), monthly Museum Family Days, school tours, and other guest speakers, demonstrations and programs. Contact Information: Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts 6815 Cypresswood Drive Spring, TX 77379 281.376.6322 www.pearlmfa.org