Oklahoma City Museum of Art

After our fabulous meal at Stella Modern Italian Cuisine we wanted to explore more of OKC’s downtown. Since we are both art lovers we decided to check out the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

The Oklahoma City Museum of Art
Photo Credit: Website

Oklahoma City Museum of Art

With a mission to enrich lives through the visual arts, the Oklahoma Museum of Art is one of the foremost arts institutions in the region. OKCMOA presents a dynamic range of exhibitions organized from prestigious museums and collections the world over.

The Museum’s own diverse collection features highlights from North America, Europe, and Asia. These works are highlighted by American art and postwar abstraction. The permanent collection also boasts one of the world’s largest public collections of Dale Chihuly glass, a major collection of photography by Brett Weston and the definitive museum collection of works by the Washington Color painter Paul Reed.

Oklahoma City Museum of Art’s renowned Samuel Roberts Noble Theater screens the finest international, independent, documentary and classic films. OKCMOA also has a wonderful Museum Store and Roof Terrace.

History

This 110,000 square foot facility, which was built in 2002, is in the heart of downtown Oklahoma City. And it’s become the anchor for a growing cultural district in this area.

The OKCMOA has roots that trace all the way back to the early statehood efforts of the Oklahoma Art League and Art Renaissance Club. Both organizations were concerned with art education for a young city. As time passed there were more formal efforts began with a Works in Progress (WPA) Experimental Gallery, which was open to the public. The Museum transitioned from a federally funded gallery to a private institution when it was incorporated on May 18, 1945.

Today’s Museum is the merging of two predecessors, the Oklahoma Art Center and the Oklahoma Museum of Art. Both institutions were committed to collecting, public programs and exhibitions; but a depressed economy during the 1980s challenged OKC’s ability to support two institutions. This led to the two joining together to become the Oklahoma City Museum of Art in 1989.

In 2002 the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Donald W. Reynolds Visual Arts Center opened to critical acclaim.

From the Golden Age to the Moving Image

Kehinde Wiley’s monumental new portrait Jacob de Graeff (2018)

Wish we knew who this is as well as the name of the artist. It felt as though he was actually there, crouching in front of us!

In the spring of 2019, OKCMOA reopened their second-floor galleries with an exciting new presentation of their permanent collection. Headlining this reinstallation is the Museum’s latest acquisition, Kehinde Wiley’s monumental new portrait Jacob de Graeff (2018) from the artist’s Kehinde Wiley: Saint Louis exhibition. Wiley’s extraordinary painting anchors a new portrait gallery that also features works by Anthony van Dyck, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and George Bellows.

Beaux Art at 75

An array of a gorgeous collection of glass sculptures

We were so happy to be able to view the Beaux Arts collection while we were there. This was an especially playful and eclectic body of work that included everything from an idyllic summer landscape by a master Abstract Expressionist to a kitschy 1980s “altarpiece” featuring a pair of photorealistic Dalmatians. OKCMOA will begin to present the entirety of its Beaux Arts collection in a series of exhibitions and permanent collection installations highlighted by Beaux Arts at 75.

 Karen LaMonte

Karen LaMonte
American, born 1967
Chado, 2010
Cast glass

Karen LaMonte has spent her career exploring how clothing and materials cover the human body. She uses cast glass to create sculptures os clothing that retain the sense of movement and drapery as if someone were wearing them. The piece above, Chado, was a museum purchase from the Beaux Arts Society for Acquisitions in 2012.

Georgia O’Keeffe

Georgia O’Keeffe
American, 1887-1986
Calla Lily (Lily – Yellow No. 2) 1927
Oil on Canvas

A Steve and I had wanted to visit the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe while we were there. Unfortunately due to Covid the museum there was only available with a reservation. And there were none to be had in our time frame. So it was a real treat to be able to see here work here!

Georgia O’Keeffe produced her first calla lily in 1923. The one above epitomizes the artist’s radical approach to what had become a cliché in “women’s art”, the still life.

Moving Vision

Op and Kinetic Art from the Sixties and Seventies

An Op Art piece full of color and movement.

Kinetic Art at its best. We loved this piece with its floating colored disks.

One of my favorites was this Calder mobile.

Another extraordinary exhibit that we got to enjoy was titled Moving Vision. Organized by the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Moving Vision: Op and Kinetic Art from the Sixties and Seventies highlighted one of the great strengths of the Museum’s permanent collection–OKCMOA’s extensive, high-quality holdings in Op (optical) and Kinetic (movement) art. This groundbreaking exhibition,  also included many historically significant loans from private collections, features movement, both real and perceived.

Dale Chihuly 

Glass Float Boats by Dale Chihuly

The Dale Chihuly ongoing exhibition was redesigned in collaboration with Chihuly Studio into what we got to enjoy. The galleries incorporate a unique design that features a three-dimensional approach to viewing some objects in the collection. The presentation allowed us, and other visitors to explore the large Float Boat and Ikebana Boat installations from all sides as well as includes viewing slots for the Reeds.

The lower portion of the soaring Dale Chihuly Tower

The rest of that amazing Chihuly glass tower.

In 2002, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art inaugurated its new home in the Donald W. Reynolds Visual Arts Center with an exhibition of glass and drawings by Dale Chihuly. Encouraged by enormous public support, the Museum purchased the exhibition, which included works from Chihuly’s best-known series and was anchored by the 55-foot Eleanor Blake Kirkpatrick Memorial Tower in the Museum’s atrium.

There is so much to tell you about the amazing Chihuly exhibit that it deserves a post of its own. So in my next one I will share some great information about this talented glass artist as well as quite a few colorful examples of his work.