Current Events Calendar

Calendar of Events

June 19 – October 3, 1999

Perkins Gallery

Twenty Years in the Field represents a mid-career survey of Gregory Conniff, a landscape photographer who defies conventional categories of 20^th-century art. His small-scale, carefully composed images are beautiful on modernist grounds. His observation of tonal contrasts, the progression of lines, and the interaction of forms are captured in pure harmony, whether they exist in a Wisconsin gravel pit, a North Dakota pasture, or a Louisiana pond. However, beyond Conniff’s immense skill as a photographer evident in each image lies the immeasurable sensation of being somewhere. Each image is entitled with the city or county and state in which the shot was taken. And each scene, even lightning in North Dakota and a factory in Ohio, is a tranquil distillation of ordinary settings.

Conniff is in the midst of a long-term project called the Field Guides. Projected to be a four-volume series, Conniff’s Field Guides is a study of the familiar rather than the extraordinary favored by traditional field guides. Yards, gardens, factories, plowed fields, and people in the landscape—all are studied for the qualities that undermine the adjective ordinary. This exhibition was originally organized by the Sordoni Art Gallery at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Through – April 2000

Lemon Street Promenade, Lakeland

Polk Museum of Art Sculpture Garden

The art works of artist Robert Wick, prominently displayed on the Lemon Street Promenade in downtown Lakeland and the Museum’s Sculpture Garden for the next year, are bronze sculptures with living plants growing out of them. Wick lives in the beautiful mountainous country of Arizona, where he is deeply moved by the earth that surrounds him. Rather than creating sculptures that challenge the environment, he creates sculptures that blend harmoniously with the environment. By juxtaposing the permanence of bronze with the organic nature of the plants growing out of the bronze, Wick asks viewers to redefine their idea of what is a sculpture.

Continuing Exhibition

The Taxdal Precolumbian Gallery features a comprehensive collection of Precolumbian artifacts from Mexico, Central America, Colombia and Peru. This gallery was recently refurbished.

Permanent Exhibition

Contemporary works by James Bassham, David E. Davis, Jane Jaskevich, Fonchen Lord and Michael Mick are featured in the Museum’s permanent exhibition space.

Annual Exhibition Fund Sponsors:

Through June 13

George W. Jenkins Student Gallery

Sponsored by NationsBank

Enjoy the charming creations and vivid imaginations of young artists in kindergarten through fifth grade in Polk County’s public schools.

George W. Jenkins Student Gallery

Sponsored by NationsBank

June 22 – August 22, 1999

Throughout the 1998-99 school year, works have been selected from the various student shows in order to bring you the finest art of Polk County students. Works in this exhibition have also been submitted by students who had art classes during the last part of the second semester of the 1998-99 school year.

Through August 1999

Thelma and J.B. Marks Gallery

Selections from the Museum’s student collection feature exceptional works created during the past ten years. These works are part of the Museum’s growing Education Department collection and have been acquired over the years through purchase awards from exhibitions shown in the student gallery.

The story of Puss in Boots, is of an exceptional cat that befriends a King, kills a terrible ogre and finds a beautiful young princess for his lucky master to marry. A truly extraordinary and very persuasive cat concocts a plan to turn a penniless peasant into a rich young nobleman.

June 5 & 6 Joan Miro: (52 MIN)

Created with exclusive access to the Miro Museum in Barcelona, this retrospective of Miro’s 65-year career brings fascinating insight to his poetic surrealism. In depth presentations of Miro’s paintings – moving from enticing glimpses of details to expansive views of whole canvases – are enhanced with state-of-the-art high definition filming, historic newsreel footage, a tour of his legendary studio and a performance by La Claca Theatre Group in costumes designed by Miro himself.

Today, after 50 years of obscurity, Cowboy Art is again enjoying a huge boom. Like Frederick Remington and Charles Russell, who romanticized the American frontier and transformed cowboys and Indians into world-famous folk heroes, there is today a whole new generation of Cowboy Artists. This video takes you to the studios of three contemporary Cowboy artists to see their art and seeks to explain the newfound popularity of the genre.

This film documents the historic journey of Prince Maximilian zu Wied, a German aristocrat, and the Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, to the American West in 1832-34. The video retraces the two year expedition to the upper reaches of the Missouri River (Montana), and evokes the experience by using Bodmer’s original paintings, extensive location photography, and the real words from Prince Maximilian’s diary. Bodmer and Maximilian left an important legacy that is cherished by today’s Native Americans and preserves and era of American cultural history that would soon vanish with the onslaught of technological civilization.

The mid-nineteenth century witnessed the growth of America’s first native school of landscape painters. Thomas Cole and his followers, who came to be known as the Hudson River School, were inspired by the compelling beauty of the Hudson River Valley and portrayed this and other romantic wilderness areas with an almost mystical reverence. This video explores the life and work of the major artist of the period, including, Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, Albert Bierdstadt, and George Innes. The program presents more than 200 paintings and prints of the period and juxtaposes them with dramatic location photography.

Make this a summer your children won’t forget. Give them fun, creative and educational experiences by signing them up for art classes at the Museum this summer. There’s something for everyone! Classes are offered in computer art, clay, drawing and painting, theater and more! Call the Museum’s education coordinator at 688-7743 x227 to register or for more information.Session I June 1 - 11 Session III July 6 - 16Session II June 14- 25 Session IV July 19 – 30

Wednesday, September 15, 1999

11:30 a.m.

Saturday, September 25, 1999

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Saturday, December 26, 1999

Noon – 2 p.m.