The Miller Art Museum will open a new exhibit, Paint the Parks, a national traveling exhibition curated by the Coutts Museum of Art in Eldorado, Kansas, on Saturday, July 30. A reception will be held that same day from 5-6:30 PM for the public to explore the works by nearly 50 artists from across the United States. The event is free and open to the general public. Light refreshments will be served.
“We are excited to debut this exhibition in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service on August 25, 2016,” said Elizabeth Meissner-Gigstead, executive director. “This exhibit will, without a doubt, give our patrons here in Door County the opportunity to celebrate what our national parks mean to their lives and allow for contemplation and appreciation of these most special places.”
The exhibit, comprised of 73 paintings, depict the beauty and significance of America’s national parks from around the country, including both their natural and cultural treasures.
The Coutts Museum has been preparing and touring the Paint the Parks exhibitions each year since 2006. The annual competition makes selections from entries by hundreds of artists vying for a place in the show as well as cash purchase awards to the grand prizewinners in full-size and miniature categories. Some of the top artists in the country, this year from 23 states, entered works in a variety of painting media including watercolor, acrylic, oil, pastel, and gouache. The winners of this 8thannual exhibit are Johne Richardson of Kansas for his oil landscape “Head Em on Home” that depicts a sunset on the prairie at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Kansas, and David Drummond of Albuquerque, NM for “Canyon Ripples,” a watercolor of Lake Powell at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Utah. These two well known, established artists/teachers have had highly successful thirty-year art careers.
“These award-winning landscapes by Johne and David are representative examples of the outstanding quality of the work that has been juried into the Paint the Parks exhibitions,” commented Deborah Rosenthal, curator of exhibitions and collections at the Miller Art Museum.
Paint the Parks artists have depicted parks of many types and varieties from around the United States administered by the National Park Service including more than thirty-five national parks, monuments, seashores, grasslands, national recreation areas and battlefields. They stretch from the Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska to Acadia National Park in Maine, from the first National Monument at Natural Bridges in Utah to the first National Park at Yosemite in California, from the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore to the Ozark National Scenic Riverway in Missouri. The artists provide glimpses of thousands of years of natural history, geological formations, man’s prehistoric and historic impact on the land, and the flora and fauna of the areas including black bears, eagles and bobcats.
“Whether fascinated by lava fields at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park or the wildlife of the barrier reefs at the Biscayne National Park south of Miami, Florida, patrons will find subjects of interest in this wide-ranging exhibit,” continued Rosenthal. “It is a reflection of the diverse worlds that make up America as seen through the eyes of these exceptional artists.”
The exhibit continues at the Miller Art Museum through September 13 at 5 PM. It has been generously underwritten by sponsors John and Kathy Campbell and Dennis and Bonnie Connolly.
