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Houston Wilderness: A Collaboration Describes Beauty, Natural Wonder within City and Surrounding Region, Emphasizes Preservation
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Thursday, July 19, 2007For Immediate Release
Houston Wilderness: A Collaboration Describes Beauty, Natural Wonder within City and Surrounding Region, Emphasizes Preservation
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Environmental Organization
Present Photography Exhibition from September 22, 2007-January 6, 2008
Houston—Art and ecology meet in a photography exhibition opening this fall at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Houston Wilderness: A Collaboration presents more than 50 photographs that offer unique interpretations of the diverse eco-regions that encompass and surround Houston. The exhibition is a joint project of the MFAH and Houston Wilderness, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and promoting the natural beauty of southeast Texas. By choosing photographs from the MFAH´s outstanding photography collection that represent the 10 ecological regions promoted by Houston Wilderness, the two entities hope to further raise public awareness of and appreciation for the area´s environment. The exhibition will be on view from September 22, 2007-January 6, 2007 in the Caroline Wiess Law Building, 1001 Bissonnet Street.
"Sometimes art perfectly underscores social concerns and so it is with this exhibition," said Peter C. Marzio, MFAH director. "Houston is in the envious position of being at the center of an amazing configuration of ecosystems, but also must lead the way in taking responsibility for preservation. The museum is proud to work with Houston Wilderness to convey this important message."
Geographically, Houston Wilderness claims 24 counties whose dimensions extend roughly in a 100-mile radius around Houston. Within that area are ten distinct ecological regions defined by Houston Wilderness as: Big Thicket, Piney Woods, Trinity Bottomlands, Columbia Bottomlands, Prairie Systems, Post Oak Savannah, Estuaries & Bays, Coastal Marshes, Gulf of Mexico & Barrier Islands, and Bayou Wilderness. The regions are described in detail — augmented with maps, photographs, and diagrams — in Houston Wilderness´s Houston Atlas of Biodiversity, recently published by Texas A&M Press. The book can be purchased for $23.95 at the MFAH Shop, 713-639-7360.
Each of the eco-regions is represented in photographs in the show, though some were actually taken outside of the 24-county area. In all, the work of 42 photographers is included, nearly all of them from Texas by birth or by choice. The photographs are primarily black and white, with about one-third in color or applied color, and a few examples of other processes such as cyanotype, platinum-palladium, and photogravure.
"Houston Wilderness describes the various ecosystems surrounding the metropolitan area as a ´necklace of jewels,´ which is so wonderfully apt," said Anne Wilkes Tucker, the Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography at the MFAH, who is coordinating the exhibition with guest curator Clint Willour of Houston. "This exhibition also gives us a chance to feature photographs donated to the museum such as those originally commissioned by Texas Monthly Magazine. The museum is grateful to Mr. Willour for contributing his expertise to this show."
In some of the works, the subject is the landscape itself. Robert Bruce Langham III´s Overcup Oaks, Little Sandy fills the frame with a stand of trees seemingly underlined with a fallen trunk stretching across the foreground. In Cynthia Leigh-Nussenblatt´s Lake, East Texas, the viewer is at eye level with the water looking toward trees lining the shore in the distance. In Reeds with Cypress, Village Creek, Big Thicket National Park (1987), the painterly creation of David H. Gibson, the reeds seem to materialize in a ghostly fog.
Particular details of nature are the focus in some works: the single leaf in Debra Fox´s Elephant Ear (1998), Tom Ryan´s delicately balanced fruit in Hooks Blueberries (1993), and Willis F. Lee´s Grama Grass II (1997). There are photographs featuring a pair of hummingbirds, snails, an American crow, a Northern Cardinal, a swan, and a young colt and its mother.
Man´s sometimes compatible, sometimes uneasy existence with the natural world is addressed in several works. Franco Fontana´s Houston (1985) shows people relaxing in a park-like setting with the city skyline dominating the picture even though it´s in the background. Geoff Winningham puts the emphasis on nature in his Little White Oak Bayou and Downtown Houston (1986), in which the city skyline appears in distinct contrast to the bayou on the distant horizon. Winningham also finds unexpected beauty in a fishing spot under a freeway in Fishing in the San Jacinto River at Interstate 45 (1986). A View from the Drain (2003), by D.B. Anderson, demonstrates nature´s resilience in the face of man´s encroachment.
Galveston Bay and its beaches are captured in three distinctly different photographs. Jeffrey DeBevec´s Galveston Bay (1985) is a moody landscape of the bay under an ominous dark cloud. Winningham creates a colorful, enticing day-at-the-beach scene with sun bathers and surf frolickers in Galveston Beach (1986). The beach is equally appealing in an entirely different way in Grandparents (1998), Lewis D. Hodnett, Jr.´s scene of three lone figures taking in the sea on a gray day.
A few photographs focus on people within a certain eco-system. Environmentalist Tony Amos is shown on bended knee on a beach in Rocky Kneten´s 1996 portrait. In Michael O´Brien´s Gatorfest Queen (1990), the titleholder in a formal gown stands at the edge of a bayou, head held high, hands on hips, seemingly unaware—or unafraid—of the open-mouthed alligator behind her. Both are from the Texas Monthly collection and were featured in the magazine in 1996 and 1990, respectively.
Opening Day Discussion
A panel discussion is planned on opening day, September 22, in the museum´s Brown Auditorium Theater, located on the lower level of the Law Building. Guest curator Clint Willour will make opening remarks at the 4 p.m. event and panelists will include photographer Geoff Winningham and representatives of Houston Wilderness. A reception and book signing for the Atlas of Biodiversity follows the discussion.
Family Programs
The museum is offering two art-making events for families in conjunction with the exhibition, a Family Day on Sunday, October 7, and a Creation Station and an informal session of sketching in the galleries on Sunday, October 14. These workshops, from 1-4 p.m. on both days, allow children and families to learn more about the exhibition through art-making activities inspired by the works in the show. All materials are provided and local artists guide participants through the process. The workshops are free with general museum admission.
Those who attend can get a stamp for their Wilderness Passport, an educational booklet developed by Houston Wilderness to encourage children to visit ecosystems in the region. The passports will be available at the MFAH during the exhibition.
Hours and Admission
The Audrey Jones Beck Building is at 5601 Main Street. Hours are Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 a.m.—5 p.m.; Thursday 10 a.m.—9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.—7 p.m.; and Sunday, 12:15—7 p.m. The museum is closed on Monday, except for holidays. Admission to this exhibition is included with general admission to the museum. General admission is $7 for adults and $3.50 for children 6-18, students, and senior adults (65+); admission is free for children 5 and under. Admission is free on Thursday, courtesy of Shell Oil Company Foundation. Admission is free on Saturday and Sunday for children 18 and under with a Houston Public Library Power Card or any other library card.
MFAH Parking
The museum´s parking garage is in the MFAH Visitors Center, located at 5600 Fannin Street at Binz Street (entrance on Binz). Free parking is available in two lots on Main Street, at Bissonnet and at Oakdale.
Cafe Express-Museum
Cafe Express-Museum offers convenient dining in the Beck Building of the MFAH. Hours are Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m., and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.
MFAH Collections
Founded in 1900, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is the largest art museum in America south of Chicago, west of Washington, D.C., and east of Los Angeles. The encyclopedic collection of the MFAH numbers more than 56,000 works and embraces the art of antiquity to the present. Featured are the finest artistic examples of the major civilizations of Europe, Asia, North and South America, and Africa. Italian Renaissance paintings, French Impressionist works, photographs, American and European decorative arts, African and Pre-Columbian gold, American art, and European and American paintings and sculpture from post-1945 are particularly strong holdings. Recent additions to the collections include Rembrandt van Rijn´s Portrait of a Young Woman (1633), the Heiting Collection of Photography, a major suite of Gerhard Richter paintings, an array of important works by Jasper Johns, a rare, second-century Hellenistic bronze Head of Poseidon/Antigonos Doson, major canvases by 19th-century painters Gustave Courbet and J.M.W. Turner, distinguished work by the leading 20th and 21st century Latin American artists, and now The Adolpho Leirner Collection of Brazilian Constructive Art.
MFAH Campus
The MFAH collections are presented in six locations that make up the institutional complex. Together, these facilities provide a total of 300,000 square feet of space dedicated to the display of art. The MFAH comprises:
• Two major museum buildings: the Caroline Wiess Law Building, designed by Mies van der Rohe, and the Audrey Jones Beck Building, designed by Rafael Moneo
• Two facilities for the Glassell School of Art: one with studio spaces for children and another with studio spaces for adults
• Two house museums that exhibit decorative arts: Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens features American works, Rienzi features European works
• The Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden, created by Isamu Noguchi
Complementing the public exhibition spaces is a major on-site conservation center where artworks are conserved prior to presentation.
General Information:
For information, the public may call 713-639-7300, or visit www.mfah.org. For information in Spanish, call 713-639-7379. TDD/TYY for the hearing impaired, call 713-639-7390. For membership information, call 713-639-7550 or email membership@mfah.org.
Media Contacts
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Frances Carter Stephens, Lynn Feuerbach, Dana Mattice, Megan Whitenton
713-639-7540 or MFAHPR@mfah.org
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