Ghost Army: The Combat Con Artists of World War II relates the unique story of more than 1,100 men who deceived, sketched, and painted across Europe to manipulate Hitler’s armies during World War II.

Activated on January 20, 1944, the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, known as the “Ghost Army,” was the first mobile, multimedia, tactical deception unit in US Army history. Consisting of an authorized strength of 82 officers and 1,023 men under the command of Army veteran Colonel Harry L. Reeder, this unique and top-secret unit was capable of simulating two whole divisions—approximately 30,000 men—and used visual, sonic, and radio deception to fool German forces during World War II’s final year.

The unit consisted of a carefully selected group of artists, engineers, professional soldiers, and draftees, including famed artists such as fashion designer Bill Blass, painter Ellsworth Kelly, and photographer Art Kane. The unit waged war with inflatable tanks and vehicles, fake radio traffic, sound effects, and even phony generals, using imagination and illusion to trick the enemy while saving thousands of lives along the way. Armed with nothing heavier than .50 caliber machine guns, the 23^rd took part in 22 large-scale deceptions in Europe from Normandy to the Rhine River, the bulk of the unit arriving in England in May 1944, shortly before D-Day. The 23rd, along with the 3133rd Signal Service Company in Italy, helped liberate Europe from the grip of Nazi tyranny.

Produced by the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, this exhibition brings together archival photography, historical artifacts, uniforms, sketches, and life-sized recreations of inflatable military equipment used during combat.

Ghost Army: The Combat Con Artists of World War II is exclusively sponsored by the E. L. Wiegand Foundation.

While the exhibition is on view the Museum will proudly offer free admission to active military members, their families, and veterans thanks to generous support from the E. L. Wiegand Foundation.

Ghost Army education and programming sponsors:

Carole Anderson
The Bretzlaff Foundation
The Thelma B. and Thomas P. Hart Foundation
The Jackie and Steve Kane Family Trust
McDonald Carano
The Private Bank by Nevada State Bank
Whittier Trust Investment & Wealth Management

Guillermo Bert makes artworks that explore the endurance of immigrants who have left their home countries behind. Rooted in his personal story, his primary focus has been the experiences of people and families who enter the United States along the U.S. – Mexico border. His artworks draw metaphorical relationships between the journeys of migrants, harsh and empty desert landscapes, and the commodification and objectification of American values. This mid-career survey includes artworks in a variety of traditional and contemporary media that are drawn from the entirety of Bert’s career, as well as new works produced exclusively for this exhibition.

In his multi-media and conceptually layered works, Bert addresses the ways in which colonization and capitalistic systems contribute to cultural displacement and the loss of Indigenous identities, traditions, and religions. In series such as Encoded Textiles and Border Zone, Bert keeps old traditions alive through new technology, enticing the viewer to actively participate in his art while simultaneously transporting them into the realities of others. Through his different series, he gives voice to people who have been marginalized, silenced, and overlooked.

Bert was born in 1959, raised in Santiago, Chile, and left his home country in the early 1980s before immigrating to Los Angeles in 1981 in search of a more open and inclusive society. Bert worked as an Art Director at the Los Angeles Times and taught art at the Art Center School of Design in Pasadena, California, before dedicating his time exclusively to his own art and design.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a major book published by the Nevada Museum of Art. The book will include an interview between Guest Curator Vivian Zavataro and artist Guillermo Bert. Additional scholarly essays by Alma Ruiz, an independent curator and Senior Fellow at the Center for Business and Management of the Arts, Claremont Graduate University, and former senior curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Tressa Berman, Ph.D., an anthropologist, curator, and writer who lives and works in California and New Mexico; Ximena Keogh Serrano is a writer and transdisciplinary scholar based in Portland, Oregon.

A companion exhibition featuring Guillermo Bert’s work will be on view at The John and Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art from September 5, 2023 to January 27, 2024.

Sponsors

Barbara and Tad Danz

Additional Support

Andres Drobny

It is generally agreed that the art historical movement known as Land Art—associated with marking, sculpting, and engaging with the Earth itself—was born in the late 1960s and early 70s as an outgrowth of Conceptual and Minimalist art. While Land Art has global roots, it is most frequently associated with the monumental desert works made in the American West by artists such as Michael Heizer, Walter De Maria, and Robert Smithson.

Land Art is continually changing. Increasingly, contemporary artists and practitioners seek to disrupt conventional definitions of the genre by critiquing, re-contextualizing, performing, and engaging in environmental and social dialogue about art of the land. These creative practices traverse conventional boundaries of art, geography, science, environmentalism and activism, while breathing new life—and needed perspective—into Land Art.

Nevada is home to numerous iconic Land Art interventions, and the Nevada Museum of Art has a long history of commissioning new artworks, publishing books, organizing public programs, and collecting artworks and archives related to this field. Drawn primarily from the permanent art and archive collections of the Nevada Museum of Art, this exhibition combines work by prominent and lesser-known artists whose works interrogate the definition of Land Art and question the established canon. While much of the world remains enchanted by the monumental land-based desert works that emerged in the American West in the late 1960s and 70s, there is equal interest among practitioners seeking to create, critique, contextualize, perform, and engage in environmental and social dialogue about art of the land.

Artists featured include Vito Acconci, Lita Albuquerque, Edgar Arceneaux, Milton Becerra, Marilyn Bridges, Stig Brøgger, Jackie Brookner, Beverly Buchanan, Judy Chicago, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Agnes Denes, Elmgreen & Dragset Chris Drury, Marcos Ramíerz Erre, Justin Favela, Ana Teresa Fernández, Regina José Galindo, Helen Mayer and Newton Harrison, Michael Heizer, Nancy Holt, Maya Lin, Metabolic Studio, Daniel McCormick and Mary O’Brien, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Ana Mendieta, Mary Miss, Dennis Oppenheim, Trevor Paglen, Postcommodity, Cai Guo-Qiang, Reko Rennie, Ugo Rondinone, Cauleen Smith, Michelle Stuart, David Taylor, Oscar Tuazon, Andrea Zittel, and Raheleh Zomorrodinia

Janna Ireland on the Architectural Legacy of Paul Revere Williams in Nevada is on view in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas through May 30, 2023.

This exhibition features the contemporary photography of Janna Ireland, who explores the important contributions of architect Paul R. Williams (1894-1980) in Nevada. Williams was the first licensed African American architect to work in the western region of the United States, designing buildings in the 1920s through the 1970s. His work in Nevada spans from the 1930s through the 1970s. The exhibition will open at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, and will then travel to the Nevada State Museum Las Vegas from December 3rd, 2022 through May 29, 2023.

Paul Revere Williams’ architectural contributions collectively helped to redefine the built environment of the region. Some of his most iconic structures are in Southern California, and include the Music Corporation of America headquarters, and the renovation of the Beverly Hills Hotel; he was also deeply involved in the design of the master plan for the LAX Airport in association with William L. Pereira and Associates. Williams’ unique architectural creations earned him the name “Architect of the Stars,” as he also designed the homes of twentieth-century entertainers, some of which include Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant.

Williams’ architectural body of work in Nevada includes residential homes that were designed to enrich the lives of all community members, commercial properties, and religious institutions. His most notable buildings include the La Concha Motel (now part of the Neon Museum) in Las Vegas, and the First Church of Christ, Scientist (now known as the Lear Theater) in Reno.

Williams was first introduced to northern Nevada in the 1930s by Luella Garvey, for whom he designed a house in Reno in 1934. That commission was followed two years later by his design of the Ranch House at Rancho San Rafael Park. Other residential and lodging properties in northern Nevada designed by Williams include the El Reno Apartments in Reno, the Lovelock Inn and Tharpe/Brinkerhoff House in Lovelock, and E.L. Cord’s Circle L Ranch House in the Fish Lake Valley.

In southern Nevada, Williams also designed the Guardian Angel Cathedral, the Royal Nevada Casino (no longer extant) and Berkley Square—Southern Nevada’s first African American suburban community.

Janna Ireland approaches Williams’ architecture from a fine arts perspective. She produces photographs that highlight the intimate interior and exterior details of his buildings, bringing her own poetic response to Williams’ work. Ireland recently completed a photographic project on Williams’ work in Southern California, which includes architectural styles ranging from Spanish Mediterranean to Modern.

This exhibition is organized by the Nevada Museum of Art and curated by Carmen Beals. We thank spokesperson Claytee White, scholarly contributors Alicia Barber and Brooke Hodge, and community partners: Our Story, Inc., KME Architects, LGA Architects, and the National Pan-Hellenic Council, Las Vegas.

Visit the exhibition research website

Major Sponsors

The Jacquie Foundation
Kim Sinatra + Family

Sponsors

Blanchard, Krasner & French | Angela and Mark Krasner
Nancy and Harvey Fennell | Dickson Realty
Kristi Overgaard, ONIYA
The Private Bank by Nevada State Bank
Sandy Raffealli | Bill Pearce Motors
The Phil and Jennifer Satre Family Fund at the Community Foundation of Western Nevada

Supporting Sponsors

Kathie Bartlett
Tammy and Michael Dermody
Drs. Shonda and Julian Hardman
The Thelma B. and Thomas P. Hart Foundation
NV Energy Foundation
Karyn and Lance Tendler

Additional Support

Friends of the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas
Nevada Humanities
NNRMLS
Katie O’Neill and Chris Gonya

Media Sponsor

PBS Reno

Featuring 90 contemporary artworks by 35 renowned American artists, The World Stage showcases some of today’s global influencers alongside prominent names from the 20th-century art canon. The exhibition title is borrowed from the name of a series of paintings by Kehinde Wiley, an artist best known for his presidential portrait of Barack Obama which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. The selected works comprise a variety of media, from painting to installation to mixed media, with a special focus on prints made in a wide range of techniques. 

Drawn from the collection of renowned art collector and philanthropist Jordan D. Schnitzer, The World Stage includes works by some of the most major American artists from the past 50 years, including Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Wendy Red Star, Mickalene Thomas, and Kehinde Wiley. Though unified by the country in which they live, these artists possess widely diverse backgrounds, worldviews, and approaches to artmaking.

Inform the Future with Your Comments
The Black Lives Matter movement will inform the future of our global society. We have extended The World Stage through February 7, 2021 to allow important space for expanded community reflection and dialogue during this critical moment. We value your thoughts and invite you to share them with us and the entire Nevada community.

To post your thoughts to the exhibition’s gallery screen:
Go to nevadaart.org/inform-the-future and complete the form provided.

Comments will be added to a continuous scroll within 72 hours from receipt and will remain as part of the exhibition. Comments containing profanity or vulgarity will not be included.

About the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation
At age 14, Jordan D. Schnitzer bought his first work of art from his mother’s Portland, Oregon contemporary art gallery, evolving into a lifelong avocation as collector. He began collecting contemporary prints and multiples in earnest in 1988. Today, the collection exceeds 14,000 works and includes many of today’s most important contemporary artists. It has grown to be one of the country’s largest private print collections. He generously lends work from his collection to qualified institutions. The Foundation has organized over 110 exhibitions and has had art exhibited at over 150 museums. Mr. Schnitzer is also President of Harsch Investment Properties, a privately owned real estate investment company based in Portland, Oregon, owning and managing office, multi-tenant industrial, multi-family and retail properties in six western states. For more information about the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, please visit jordanschnitzer.org.

Sponsors

Julie and Michael Teel | Raley’s
Volunteers in Art of the Nevada Museum of Art 

Supporting Sponsor

Kathie Bartlett

Additional Support

Quentin Abramo
Rory Higgins and Colby Williams
Dana and Greg Lee
Heidi Allyn Loeb
Katie O’Neill and Chris Gonya

Promotional Partner

Reno-Tahoe International Airport

The Art of Jean LaMarr is on view in Boise, Idaho at the Boise Art Museum through June 11, 2023.

Jean LaMarr (born 1945) makes art that addresses issues such as cultural stereotypes, representations of women and Native American people, and the traditions of her ancestors. Although she has worked primarily as a printmaker, she is also known for her paintings, assemblages, videos, and installation work. LaMarr is of Paiute/Pit River ancestry with family ties to Northern Nevada and northern California, and was born in Susanville, California, in 1945.  Her artistic development was critically influenced by the time she spent at UC Berkeley from 1973-76 where she earned her BFA and was involved with activist politics. LaMarr describes herself as a community artist-activist. She lives on the Susanville Indian Rancheria in northeastern California, where she continues to operate the Native American Graphic Workshop.

Sponsors

Carole K. Anderson
Nevada Arts Council
Kristi Overgaard
Sandy Raffealli | Bill Pearce Motors
The Phil and Jennifer Satre Family Fund at the Community Foundation of Western Nevada

Supporting Sponsors

Kathie Bartlett

Additional Support

In memory of Bernadette Kaye, sharing her culture.
Nevada Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities

This exhibition features more than 50 large-format photographs by the renowned Italian photographer Gianfranco Gorgoni (1941-2019), who is best known as the premier documentarian of Land Art in America. After meeting the legendary New York gallery owner Leo Castelli in 1969, Gorgoni was introduced to artists including Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, Walter De Maria, Carl Andre, Joseph Beuys, Richard Serra, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude—a veritable Who’s Who of artists in New York City and Europe.

He first became known for making portraits of these individuals, but it was not long before he was invited by Heizer, Smithson, and De Maria to travel to the American West, where they were making some of the most iconic Earthworks of the twentieth century. Gorgoni was the first photographer to collaborate with these artists, and his images often serve as the definitive photographic record of their groundbreaking projects.

In 2016, the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art acquired  Gorgoni’s archive, containing more than 2,000 images documenting Land Art. The images offer a unique and unparalleled record of how these artists’ iconic projects were created.

Gianfranco Gorgoni: Land Art Photographs will include Gorgoni’s photographs of works by Christo & Jean-Claude, Nancy Holt, Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Ugo Rondinone, Charles Ross, Richard Serra, and Robert Smithson. The photographs will become part of the Carol Franc Buck Altered Landscape Photography Collection at the Nevada Museum of Art.

About the Book

The first career-spanning book of the work of Gianfranco Gorgoni, whose iconic photographs established Land Art as one of the major movements of the twentieth century.

Essays by Ann M. Wolfe, Germano Celant, and William L. Fox

Hardcover, 256 pages, published by Monacelli Press and the Nevada Museum of Art

Major Sponsors

Carol Franc Buck Foundation
The Cashman Foundation
Kim Sinatra + Family

Sponsors

Barbara and Tad Danz
Kathryn A. Hall and Laurel Trust Company
Maureen Mullarkey and Steve Miller
Linda and Alvaro Pascotto

Many of the photographs in this exhibition were purchased with a bequest from Nancy L. Peppin.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, a group of iconoclastic creators pushed against industrialization to enlighten humanity with their revolutionary take on beauty. Drawn from the collection of the city of Birmingham, United Kingdom, Victorian Radicals brings together more than 145 paintings, works on paper, and decorative objects—many of which have never been exhibited outside the U.K.—to illuminate this dynamic period of British art. 

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the champions of the Arts & Crafts Movement offered a radical vision of art and society inspired by pre-Renaissance culture. Works by pioneering artists Ford Madox Brown, Kate Elizabeth Bunce, Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and others, represent the response of Britain’s first modern art movement to the industrialization of the period.  

Artists and designers explored vital concerns of their time—the relationship between art and nature, religious themes, questions of class and gender identity, the value of the handmade versus machine production, and the search for beauty in an age of industry. 

This is the final opportunity to see this unparalleled exhibition before it leaves the West Coast.   

Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts and Crafts Movement is organized by the American Federation of Arts and Birmingham Museums Trust. The national tour is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding provided by Clare McKeon and the Dr. Lee MacCormick Edwards Charitable Foundation.

Lead Sponsors

Wayne and Rachelle Prim
The Six Talents Foundation

Major Sponsors

Carole K. Anderson
The Deborah and T.J. Day Foundation

Sponsors

Blanchard, Krasner & French
Barbara and Tad Danz
Nancy and Brian Kennedy
Jenny and Garrett Sutton | Corporate Direct
Whittier Trust, Investment & Wealth Management

Supporting Sponsors

Haynie & Company
Dinah O’Brien
Pat and Marshall Postman

Additional Support

Kathie Bartlett

Promotional Partner

Reno-Tahoe International Airport

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.

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