From August 4 through November 29, the Harry Ransom Center hosts the exhibition Frank Reaugh: Landscapes of Texas and the American West. It showcases more than 100 artworks by renowned artist Frank Reaugh (pronounced “Ray”) drawn from the Ransom Center’s own collection as well as public and private collections from around the state. The companion book Windows on the West: The Art of Frank Reaugh, edited by Curator of Art Peter F. Mears, complements the exhibition, and published by the Ransom Center and UT Press. Excerpted below is the foreward to the book, “Frank Reaugh in Retrospect,” written by Ron Tyler. In it, Tyler reflects on Reaugh’s life and the context of Reaugh’s distinguished career. [Read more…] about Frank Reaugh: In retrospect
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Rediscovering the art of Frank Reaugh
From August 4 through November 29, 2015, the Harry Ransom Center hosts the exhibition Frank Reaugh: Landscapes of Texas and the American West. The showcase displays over 100 artworks by renowned artist Frank Reaugh (pronounced “Ray”). To complement the exhibition, a companion book is available titled Windows on the West, The Art of Frank Reaugh, edited by Curator of Art Peter F. Mears. The excerpt below is Mears’s introduction to the book, titled “Rediscovering the Art of Frank Reaugh.” In it, he describes Reaugh’s life, vision, and legacy as one of Texas’s most iconic artists. [Read more…] about Rediscovering the art of Frank Reaugh
Frida Kahlo’s "Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird" back on display today
Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940), one of the Ransom Center’s most famous and frequently borrowed works of art, is on display through July 28.
Since 1990 the painting has been on almost continuous loan, featured in exhibitions in more than 25 museums in the United States and around the world in countries such as Australia, Canada, France, and Spain.
The painting was most recently on view in the three-venue exhibition In Wonderland: The Surrealist Activities of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States, organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and exhibited subsequently at the Musée National des beaux-arts du Quebec in Quebec City and at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. The painting travels next to The ARKEN Museum of Modern Art in Ishøj, Denmark, for the exhibition Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera, running from September 7, 2013 to January 5, 2014.
Kahlo (1907–1954) taught herself to paint after she was severely injured in a bus accident at the age of 18. For Kahlo, painting became an act of cathartic ritual, and her symbolic images portray a cycle of pain, death, and rebirth.
Kahlo’s affair in New York City with Hungarian-born photographer Nickolas Muray (1892–1965), which ended in 1939, and her divorce from artist Diego Rivera at the end of that same year left her heartbroken and lonely. But she produced some of her most powerful and compelling paintings and self-portraits during this time.
Muray purchased the self-portrait from Kahlo to help her during a difficult financial period. It is part of the Ransom Center’s Nickolas Muray collection of more than 100 works of modern Mexican art, which was acquired by the Center in 1966. The collection also includes Kahlo’s Still Life with Parrot and Fruit (1951) and the drawing Diego y Yo (1930).
View the video documentary “A World of Interest: Frida Kahlo’s Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird,” which highlights the painting’s return to the Ransom Center.
Writer Jim Crace discusses creative process in two videos
English writer Jim Crace, currently a visiting professor at The University of Texas at Austin Michener Center for Writers, will give a reading this Thursday, December 6, at 7:30 p.m. in the Avaya Auditorium, ACE 2.302. Crace’s archive resides at the Ransom Center, and on a previous visit to Austin he spoke with the Ransom Center about his interests and work.
In these two videos, Crace discusses how painting coastal watercolors sparks his imagination, and shares several original drawings of imaginary places. These videos illuminate the inspiration Crace draws from places he created as a child, both real and fictional.
Jim Crace on Painting
“All of my novels, without exception, I think, are landscape novels… and I think that landscape is almost a character in all of my novels. So these things are important to me.”
Jim Crace’s Childhood Maps and the Narrative of Travel
“I used to love looking at atlases. It seemed to me that implicit in every map I looked at on every page was a narrative of travel, an armchair story that you could imagine yourself going around this coastline or traveling up that river or crossing those mountains.”