Abilene has always been ambitious but for many locals, the 1950s and 1960s were the golden years of record breaking accomplishments in commerce, culture and high school football. If you remember the Sandy Chapel Show and the Slim Willet Show, Gandy’s Big Buy, the Abilene Astronomical Society meetings at the Dixie Pig, cruise night, the Zoo in Fair Park, Mack … Flashback to Midcentury Abilene

Selected paintings and works on paper from The Grace Museum’s permanent collection will be featured in the second floor galleries. The old adage, home is where the heart is, is evident in the rural scenes created by American Regionalists, Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood who created optimistic views of the American heartland during the Great Depression. In the 1970s, … Home Coming

Artists Roger Colombik & Jerolyn Bahm-Colombik, in collaboration with International Rescue Committee of Abilene, created an installation featuring photography, sculpture and oral history dialogues personalizing the experiences of people from around the globe who are currently making their home in Abilene, Texas. A site-specific visual environment created in the first floor gallery incorporates the personal narratives of recent emigres from … More Life in a Time without Boundaries

The art of photographing people in their own environment can be more difficult than a formal portrait. Available light, language barriers, discretion and suspicion are among the variables at work. More than a casual snap shot, the photographs selected for this exhibition reveal a narrative composed of a particular person, place and moment in time as well as the unseen … Home Work

Explore the history of Texas as a unique blend of Spanish, Mexican and Anglo-American traditions through Spanish Texas: Legend & Legacy exhibitions at The Grace Museum.  Trace Spanish exploration and colonization (1527-1690) of Texas through early maps, art and artifacts on loan from prestigious museums and collections from across the state.  Santos, retablos, art, vestments and artifacts from several of the state’s … Spanish Texas: Legend & Legacy

The eternal theme of light and dark has always interested artists. It is given importance in philosophical, technical, and mystical intentions. A master of light and shadow, Susan kae Grant conveys much more than just a play of shadows and silhouettes in this exhibition through a site-specific installation of works on fabric, single works on paper, triptychs, a video projection, as well as a … Susan kae Grant: Shadowing Grace

Josef Albers (1888-1976) was an American-German artist best known for his iconic color square series, Homage to the Square, which he began in 1949 and major contributions to color theory. A student of famed colorist Johannes Itten, Albers took over his course at the Bauhaus school in 1923 and co-taught with László Moholy-Nagy. “Simultaneous contrast is not just a curious optical phenomenon—it … Josef Albers: Homage to the Square

Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) studied art and philosophy in several schools before he attended Columbia University in New York. While in New York he met several Surrealist artists with whom he exchanged artistic and philosophical theories. Through his frequent experimentation with various media, he became an important Abstract Expressionist painter and central figure in postwar American art. Incorporating many of the … Robert Motherwell: London Series

“In the world of still life and landscape, conceptual events meet one another – the structural meets the narrative, the small stands in the space of the large, and color has a chance to navigate these meetings, changing everything. All my paintings show this shifting world.” — Mary Vernon The Grace Museum is pleased to present a solo exhibition of … Mary Vernon: Painting is Drawing

Artist Statement In 2004, I quit my day job as a staff photographer at the Dallas Morning News to pursue freelance and fine art photography. Day one of being self- employed, I drove to Marfa with my future husband, our two dogs and my red Hasselblad and a bunch of film.  I took the opportunity to slow down, wait for … Allison V. Smith: Plain View

ho r i  z   o   n    s    c     a      p      e      s The small scale of Katie Maratta’s vast miniature vistas demands closer examination. Only then are you rewarded with the impeccable detail of her horizontal narratives of the vast Texas landscape. Katie Maratta’s “horizonscapes” present an opportunity to experience … Katie Maratta: horizonscapes

Ashton Thornhill is a fine art photographer currently working on the Llano Estacado of Texas. He spent several years working as a photojournalist before he returned to his alma mater, Texas Tech University, to share his love of the medium and teach photography. After almost three decades in the classroom, he retired to devote his considerable talents to developing his own … Texas Noir: Photography by Ashton Thornhill

Identifiable subjects are only part of the enduring allure of realism. Each generation of realist artists brings new subjects and new media to the genre.  AS IS rural realism features the art of contemporary realists whose work transforms the mundane into the magical by concentrating on off-road subjects and offering unique ways of seeing just how significant the seemingly insignificant can be. Just … As Is Rural Realism

A Visual Epilogue: Linda Ridgway & Harry Geffert is the first and last, two person exhibition of works on paper and sculpture by two of the most prolific and widely- recognized contemporary artists of the past decades. Ridgway ad Geffert worked together in life and in the studio. The original concept for the exhibition was transformed by the November 2017, … A Visual Epilogue: Linda Ridgway & Harry Geffert

The art of Margaret Smithers-Crump is rooted in a life-long love of both our planet as well as personal and global human interactions with the natural world. Her current work examines microscopic and macroscopic relationships in nature. Travels aboard and experience of the vast open spaces of West Texas has had a particular influence on the works to be exhibited … Inherit the Earth: Margaret Smithers-Crump

“The sculptures emerge from the making, from the initial process of joining pieces of wood anticipating the evolution of forms in significant relationship, which becomes the focus for exploration. I prefer not to plan but to discover surprises. The titles come later and are suggestive. The drawings follow the hand in the same way. What is not planned cannot be … Outside of Time: Philip John Evett (1923-2016)