As a benefit of membership, active Museum members are invited to view the fall lineup of exhibitions, including a last-chance-look at the feature exhibition Janna Ireland on the Architectural Legacy of Paul Revere Williams. Enjoy extended gallery hours, live music in the Nightingale Sky Room and cocktails on the Mathewson Sky Plaza. Galleries will host local DJ sets and pop-up performances. Drinks and small bites menu available for purchase.  

FREE for Members 
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Bringing together visitor favorites alongside more recent acquisitions, Drawings: Selections from the Permanent Collection, highlights contemporary works on paper from the Nevada Museum of Art holdings of over 3,000 artworks. Each work in this small exhibition demonstrates exacting precision and a commitment to the fundamentals of drawing.  Whether using graphite or ink to express a mood, create space, or tell a story, artists including Katie Holten, Anne Lindberg, Jack Malotte, Erika Osborne, Martín Ramírez, and the collective consisting of Wilson Díaz, Amy Franceschini and Renny Pritikin, have made drawing a vital component of their practice.

The artworks that comprise the E. L. Wiegand Collection date from the early twentieth century to the present and represent various manifestations of the work ethic in American art. While many emphasize people undertaking the physical act of labor, others focus on different types of work environments ranging from domestic interiors and rural landscapes to urban cityscapes and industrial scenes. By expanding the definition of the term work ethic to encompass a broad range of activities undertaken by a diverse spectrum of people from various cultural and socioeconomic groups, the collection seeks to acknowledge all those who have devoted their lives to the tireless pursuit of work.

Edwin L. Wiegand was a successful entrepreneur and inventor who made Reno his home in 1971. He died in 1980 at the age of 88, and the E. L. Wiegand Foundation was established in Reno in 1982 for general charitable purposes.

The Nevada Museum of Art thanks the E. L. Wiegand Foundation for their generous, ongoing support of this unique permanent collection.

Bolivian artist Sonia Falcone’s Campo de Color (Color Field) is an immersive installation made from spices, salt, and other raw materials. It is not only a multi-sensory experience, but also a commentary on the ways that foods continue to connect people, cultures, and regions in our increasingly globalized world.

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.

This exhibition—primarily drawn from the Nevada Museum of Art’s permanent collection—presents work that taps into and explores various kinds of ancestral frequencies. Ranging from Indigenous artists of the Great Basin to Australia, as well as artists examining their African and Latin American roots, the artists in the exhibition explore different modes of artistic expression that inspire connections to diverse cultural histories. The double entendre of the title further underscores how considerations of cultural belonging, in particular with respect to the human relationship to its natural environs, have become irregular and displaced with the advent of modernization and the industrial revolution. Together the works in the exhibition inspire us to listen to and tune in to the frequencies and ancestral wisdoms of the past.

Organized by Apsara DiQuinzio, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, with Kolin Perry, Curatorial Assistant.

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.

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.

Jimmy López Bellido, a world-renowned, Finnish-trained, Peruvian-American composer, was invited by Laura Jackson, Music Director of the Reno Philharmonic, to work with curators at the Nevada Museum of Art to select photographs from the Museum’s Carol Franc Buck Altered Landscape Photography Collection to inspire his brand-new composition, Symphony No. 3: Altered Landscape.

The symphony explores the dynamic interconnectedness of humans and the Earth and envisions a hypothetical future where people exist in harmony with the natural environment.

Join us for a discussion with Jimmy López Bellido, Laura Jackson and Director of the Center for Art + Environment, William L. Fox. For tickets to the world premiere symphony, please visit renophil.com

In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson presents a powerful and transporting documentary—part music film, part historical record created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). The footage was largely forgotten–until now. Summer of Soul shines a light on the importance of history to our spiritual well-being and stands as a testament to the healing power of music during times of unrest, both past and present. The feature includes concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, The 5th Dimension and more.

Summer of Soul is presented in partnership with Northern Nevada Black Cultural Awareness Society. 

Run time: 1 hour 57 minutes

Free. Advanced registration is required.

The Reno Philharmonic, together with the Museum, explores the marriage of art and music with a new symphony by Jimmy López Bellido. Inspired by The Altered Landscape: Carole Franc Buck Collection, the composition studies the dynamic interconnectedness of humans and the Earth and envisions a hypothetical future where we exist in harmony with our natural environment. Listeners discover an art museum in Mussorgsky’s mind, as he imagines walking from one picture to the next, characterizing each painting through sound.

This program is hosted at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts.