Past Exhibitions

Abstract image of a yellow polyhedral shape on a black background

Northwest Ambience Frank Okada from the Permanent Collection

Focus Gallery

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Frank Okada described his paintings as “dedicatory objects,” which expressed gesture, memory, and sensation. In Northwest Ambience, a selection of paintings by Okada from the JSMA’s collection will be exhibited with two portraits of the artist by Seattle photographer Mary Randlett (American, 1924-2019).

An abstract painting of a table with a checkered tablecloth, surrounded by swirling, smoky shapes and two fish-like figures.

Morris Graves On the Surface

Morris Graves Gallery

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Morris Graves’s still life paintings and studies of objects engaged his interests in furniture design, domestic spaces, symbolism, and transcendental consciousness. On the Surface is drawn primarily from the JSMA’s Graves at Oregon collection and includes two photographs of the artist and his home by Mary Randlett (American, 1924-2019).

Data visualization image with clusters of small colored dots and lines, creating a symmetrical, intricate pattern.

Creativity Counts Possibilities Shaped by Constraints of Arithmetic

Artist Project Space

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E. E. Eischen, a UO Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics, developed a new undergraduate course offered spring term 2020—Math and the creative process: A participatory exploration of number theory. In addition to the students’ final projects printed on metal, acrylic, and paper, the exhibition features works made by members of UO’s Department of Mathematics.

Includes resources
Light colored angular houses with red windows and orange roofs under a looming castle in front of a rainbow checkered sky

Pierre Daura’s Enchanted Universe

A. Dean & Lucile I. McKenzie Gallery

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Drawn from the permanent collections of the JSMA and Knight Law Center, this exhibition explores the paintings of Catalan-American artist Pierre Daura through his answers to a survey conducted in 1953 by Surrealist poet and founder, André Breton, about the connection between art and magic.

Includes resources
White brick fire place and chimney in the snow with barren trees in the background in front of a vibrant red, orange, and yellow sunrise or sunset

NewArt Northwest Kids

Education Corridor

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For the past thirteen years, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art has organized and presented NewArt Northwest Kids, an annual K–12 juried student exhibition. This year’s theme, Art, Hope and Resilience, encouraged students to share their own stories from 2020 through words and images.

A colorful, symmetrical artwork with geometric shapes, including circles and triangles, in vibrant colors.

Metamorphosis Visualizing the Music of Paul Hindemith

Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Gallery

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The JSMA and Eugene Symphony Association celebrate an innovative collaboration with four Oregon visual artists in response to Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)’s orchestral masterpiece Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of Weber. Mika Aono, Anna Fidler, Andrew Myers, and Julia Oldham created new works in printmaking, painting, drawing, and animation inspired by Hindemith’s most popular work.

Includes resources
A black and white drawing of three figures standing in a semi-circular arrangement. The central figure wears a white garment and holds a palm branch, while the two other figures hold staffs. The background includes a palm tree and abstract patterns.

Nkame A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón

Coeta and Donald Barker Changing Exhibitions Gallery

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The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is pleased to host Nkame, a solo exhibition dedicated to the work of the late Cuban printmaker Belkis Ayón (1967-1999). During her short but fertile career, she produced an extraordinary body of work central to the history of contemporary printmaking in Cuba and abroad.

Includes resources
Photograph of black tubing with pink utility line markers in grass in front of a forest

Steve Rowell Uncanny Sensing, Remote Valleys

Artist Project Space

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Steve Rowell investigates ecology and post-natural landscapes in his multicomponent installation Uncanny Sensing, Remote Valleys (2013-20). The project’s title combines “remote sensing” (a method of data collection from the physical world via sensors and other remote technology) and “uncanny valley” (the cognitive dissonance caused by lifelike replicas of living things)

Includes resources

Art of the Athlete All Stars

Education Corridor

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For the past 8 years, the Art of the Athlete (AofA) program has been an education program for UO student-athletes as part of the museum’s broad outreach program which engages diverse student groups from across campus. This year, we asked 6 former and current AofA participants to jury artwork made the past 8 years as part of the program.

Round ceramic vase with short narrow neck and slightly flared lip with pale green glaze

Korean Ceramic Culture Legacy of Earth and Fire

Wan Koo and Young Ja Huh Wing and Jin Joo Gallery of Korean Art

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As a teaching museum, the JSMA is dedicated to helping students develop meaningful, life-long connections with art. In addition to regular museum visits and classes, we periodically receive grants that allow us to host scholars with a deeper research focus. In Fall 2019, Bokyoung Hong, a specialist in Korean ceramics, came to the JSMA for a 10-month Korea Foundation Global Challengers internship.

Common Seeing LOOK. Listen. Learn. Act.

Focus Gallery

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Every year, the JSMA partners with the University of Oregon’s Common Reading—campus-wide programming around a shared book and its themes—to organize a Common Seeing exhibition that explores and expands on the Common Reading through visual art. The 2020-21 novel is This is My America by UO Assistant Vice Provost for Advising, Kimberly Johnson.

Includes resources

A Woman’s Worth

John and Ethel MacKinnon Gallery

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Inspired by the Feminist Art Coalition’s mission to promote feminist art histories “as a catalyst for discourse and civic engagement” during the 2020 election season and beyond, this exhibition considers the representation of women by male artists from the Renaissance through the twentieth century.

Includes resources

Rhapsody in Blue and Red

Ukiyo-e Prints of the Utagawa School

Fay Boyer Preble and Virginia Cooke Murphy Wing

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In Winter 2019, Art History Professor Akiko Walley and Chief Curator Anne
Rose Kitagawa team-taught an Utagawa School course in which students
studied this vibrant artistic tradition and learned about exhibition
planning in order to contribute to this installation, which features more
than 30 loans from Lee and Mary Jean Michels along with prints from the
museum’s permanent collection.

Entre mundos

Memory and Material

Morris Graves Gallery

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Entre mundos (Between Worlds) explores the spaces within, between, and
among multiple worlds where transformation and change occur in art and
individuals. The four works on view in Entre mundos entered the museum’s
collection through the generosity of UO students, faculty and departments,
and friends of the JSMA.

Nuestra imagen actual | Our Present Image Mexico and the Graphic Arts 1929-1956

Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Gallery

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The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA) and the Portland Art Museum (PAM) are co-organizing Nuestra imagen actual | Our Present Image: Mexico and the Graphic Arts 1929-1956. The exhibition aims to deepen and broaden the understanding and appreciation of the graphic art of post-revolutionary Mexico, a landmark in the history of twentieth-century printmaking and modern art.

Includes resources