Due to construction, Museum parking may be limited at the time of your visit. Look for additional parking in free or metered spaces along nearby streets.

Anthony McCall: Swell

Swell transports visitors to a different time and place. Inside a darkened gallery, beams of light intersect with a hazy mist to create a mesmerizing interplay of light and shadow. For some visitors, Swell evokes the experience of slowly floating across an ocean current or soaring through an expansive galaxy beyond our universe.

Anthony McCall (born 1940) is a British-born artist known for his ‘solid-light’ installations that he began in 1973. In 2024, McCall has solo museum exhibitions on view at the Tate Modern in London, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and the Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design in Lisbon, Portugal. Swell was commissioned by the Nevada Museum of Art for its permanent collection in 2017.

This presentation of Swell is presented in conjunction with the exhibition: Deep Time: Sea Dragons of Nevada.

 

 

 

 

 

Sagebrush and Solitude: Maynard Dixon in Nevada

Sagebrush and Solitude: Maynard Dixon in Nevada is the first comprehensive exhibition and book to document the early wanderings and extended visits of the accomplished painter Maynard Dixon to the state of Nevada, Lake Tahoe, and the Eastern Sierra. From 1901 to 1939, Dixon made several trips from his San Francisco home to paint and sketch the striking landscapes of the Great Basin and Sierra Nevada. He also wrote numerous poems during his time in the American West. From Dixon’s first Nevada sketching trip on horseback with fellow artist Edward Borein in 1901, to his month-long commission documenting the construction of the Boulder Dam (now known as the Hoover Dam) in Las Vegas in 1934, Dixon captured the beauty of Nevada’s open spaces as well as its developing landscape. Among Dixon’s favorite painting subjects were old homesteads, wild horses, and stands of cottonwood trees, all of which figure prominently into over 100 paintings that will be included in this historic exhibition.

This exhibition is curated by Ann M. Wolfe, Andrea and John C. Deane Family Chief Curator and Associate Director, with scholarly contributions from Donald J. Hagerty, an independent scholar and author of six books on Dixon, including Desert Dreams: The Art and Life of Maynard Dixon. John Ott, professor of art history at James Madison University will contribute an essay on representations of labor and race in Dixon’s Boulder Dam paintings. Ann Keniston, professor of English with a specialty in American Poetry at the University of Nevada, Reno, will write on Dixon’s poems within the context of Modern poetry.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 288-page book published by Rizzoli Electa in New York and is designed by award-winning creative director, Brad Bartlett.

Major Sponsors

Victor and Victoria Atkins
The Bretzlaff Foundation
Carol Franc Buck Foundation
Gabelli Foundation | Mario Gabelli
Sandy Raffealli | Bill Pearce Motors
Phil and Jennifer Satre
Larry and Cathy Spector

Sponsors

Carole Anderson
Anonymous
Mary Connolly
The Deborah and T.J. Day Foundation
Dickson Realty | Nancy and Harvey Fennell
The Thelma and Thomas Hart Foundation
The Jackie and Steve Kane Family Trust
Roswitha Kima Smale, PhD
Peter and Turkey Stremmel
Steve Martin and Anne Stringfield
Whittier Trust Company & Wealth Management

Supporting Sponsors

Betsy Burgess and Tim Bailey
Kathie Bartlett
Chica Charitable Trust
Andrea A. and John C. Deane Family
Lynn and Tom Fey
Georgia A. Fulstone
Molly and Mark D. Gamble
Jennifer and Robert Laity
Charlotte and Dick McConnell
Sheila and Keith McWilliams
Marina and Rafael Pastor

Additional Support

Answerwest Inc.
Christie’s
David Dee Fine Arts
D.D. and Paul Felton
Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation
Nevada Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities
Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at BYU

Media Sponsor

PBS Reno

 

April Bey: Atlantica, The Gilda Region

In Atlantica, The Gilda Region, interdisciplinary artist April Bey creates an immersive installation that taps into Black Americans’ historical embrace of space travel and extraterrestrial visioning—a cultural movement dating back to the late 1960s and later termed Afrofuturism. Through this Afrofuturist lens, Bey reflects on subjects such as queerness, feminism, and internet culture in vibrant tableaux that combine plants, video, music, photography, and oversized mixed-media paintings and textiles.

In the exhibition, Bey positions herself as an alien from the planet “Atlantica,” where her mission on Earth is to observe and report as an undercover agent. This imagined world and her general interest in storytelling come from her father, who would relate childhood tales using alien narratives to illustrate how Black people were othered in the United States and The Bahamas. In contrast to the racial oppression and exploitation rampant on Earth, Atlantica offers a beautiful diasporic world in which Black people thrive and flourish.

A visual artist and art educator, Bey was raised in The Bahamas (New Providence) and now lives and works in Los Angeles, where she teaches at Glendale Community College.

April Bey: Atlantica, The Gilda Region is organized by the California African American Museum (CAAM) in Los Angeles. The exhibition was curated by Mar Hollingsworth, former visual arts curator, CAAM.

Sponsors

Nevada Arts Council
The National Endowment for the Arts

Ellsworth Kelly: Prints from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

Ellsworth Kelly is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker, who in the years following his service in World War II, created artwork that shaped a unique style by employing hard-edged and boldly colored shapes, quite distinctive from the mainstream of American abstraction of the 1950s. This small exhibition features examples of the works for which Kelly became best known, and demonstrate Kelly’s subtle techniques emphasizing line, color, and form. All the works are on loan from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.

Born in Newburgh, New York, Kelly was attending Pratt Institute in Brooklyn when his schooling was cut short by the rumblings of World War II. He entered U.S. military service in 1943 requesting to be assigned to the 603rd Engineers Camouflage Battalion, a tactical deception unit also known as the Ghost Army. Comprised of artists and designers, the Ghost Army used inflatable tanks, trucks, and other elements of subterfuge to mislead the Axis forces during the last year of World War II, creating entire dummy airfields, motor pools, artillery batteries, and tank formations in a matter of hours. Kelly served with the unit until the end of the European theater of World War II. His exposure to military camouflage became part of his basic art training, instructing him in the use of form and shadow, as well as the construction and deconstruction of the visible.

All the works are on loan from The Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.

Sponsors

Julie and Michael Teel | Raley’s

Sonia Falcone: Campo de Color (Color Field)

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.

Picasso in Clay: Selections from the Robert Felton and Lindsay Wallis Collection

Although Spanish-born artist Pablo Picasso is best known as a Modernist who invented the artistic style known as Cubism, he also produced a lesser-known, but equally impressive body of decorative ceramic objects during the latter part of his life. This exhibition features thirty ceramic works designed by Picasso that are on loan from longtime collectors Robert Felton and Lindsay Wallis. The artworks are a generous bequest to the Nevada Museum of Art.  

Following World War II and the liberation of Paris, Picasso began to increasingly spend time in the coastal region of southern France. In 1946, he encountered an exhibition of pottery in Vallauris, a town with a long history of pottery production reaching back to the Roman Empire. It was there that he met Suzanne and Georges Ramié, owners of the Madoura ceramics workshop, who invited him to model some small works from clay. This was the beginning of a longtime friendship and business relationship. 

In 1947, Picasso gave up his urban home in the rue des Grands-Augustins in Paris and set up his principal studio in Vallauris. He remained in Madoura for several years. During this time, the Ramiés allowed Picasso to make and decorate ceramic wares in their workshop whenever he pleased. In exchange, Picasso allowed them to edition his creations and to retain the profits from their sale.  

Over a period of 20 years, Picasso worked with ceramic artists at the studio to create nearly 4,000 objects. His involvement in the production of each piece varied. Sometimes he created the mold used to form an object, other times he sculpted and gouged the clay into unique shapes, and often he simply decorated or painted objects that other ceramicists had already thrown and shaped.    

Whether a plate, pitcher, bowl, mask, tile, or platter, Picasso decorated his objects with a range of colorful and witty subjects. From everyday animals or plants, to mythological creatures and hybrid human-animals, Picasso’s ceramics reflect the joy and newfound freedom he embraced while living in southern France following the war.  

Sponsors

Betsy Burgess and Tim Bailey
Barbara and Tad Danz

Supporting Sponsors

The Collections Committee of the Nevada Museum of Art
Tammy and Michael Dermody
Evercore Wealth Management

Additional Support

Linda Frye

Feature Image: Pablo Picasso, Engraved Bull, 1947, Rectangular dish A.R. white earthenware clay, decoration in engobes, engraved under yellow glaze, 12 1/2 x 15 ½ inches. Collection of the Nevada Museum of Art, Promised gift of Robert Felton and Lindsay Wallis. © 2022 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Land Art: Expanding the Atlas

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

The World Stage: Contemporary Art from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

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

Gianfranco Gorgoni: Land Art Photographs

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.

King of Beasts: A Study of the African Lion by John Banovich

This exhibition features paintings by esteemed wildlife painter John Banovich, alongside historical artworks dating from the 15th through 20th centuries by internationally renowned artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt and George Stubbs, all focused on depicting the extraordinary African lion. An internationally recognized artist who has studied lions for decades, Banovich has created a body of work that is also an homage to these animals. King of Beasts features more than thirty artworks that explore questions about humankind’s deep fear, love, and admiration for these creatures. The exhibition spans nearly twenty-five years of work and assembles his body of work focused on African lions for the very first time.

In Africa, the lion has served as a symbol of strength, bravery, and physical prowess among many cultures. However, today nearly all wild lions are found within small regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, and a tiny population exists in India. Outside of protected areas, the African lion is disappearing at an alarming rate. Conservationists agree that the remaining population must be protected if these magnificent creatures are to survive.

Born 1964 in Butte, Montana, John Banovich is known internationally for his large, dramatic portrayals of iconic wildlife. Today, Banovich’s work can be found in private and corporate collections, as well as museums throughout the world. In addition to his artworks, he uses his paintings to raise awareness about imperiled species through Banovich Wildscapes Foundation. Funds generated from artwork sales are reinvested to support grassroots conservation efforts that promote habitat protection, science-based wildlife management and sustainable tourism.

Sponsors
Bank of America
Victoria Zoellner

Supporting Sponsors
Eldorado Resorts, Inc.
Alan and Nancy Maiss

Additional Support
Baranof Jewelers
Coeur d’Alene Art Auction
Phelps Engineering Services, Inc.
Donald Schupak
Scottsdale Art Auction
E.J. and Emil Solimine and Family