Past
Exhibits
Quiltscapes
December 6, 2008 - May 17, 2009
Dozens of quilts from the MAC Collection convey artistic and emotional expression, both personal and community-based. View these works of art from the intimate level of intricate stitching and fabric selection. Revel in the power of their designs. Or take a birds-eye perspective, following their cross-country migrations to the Inland Northwest. » Photos
In Iraq: Spokane Soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 1-161 Infantry Regiment, 81st Brigade Combat Team
March 6, 2009–April 23, 2009
Spokane photographer Jed Conklin documented the Washington National Guard's 161st Regiment as they provided convoy protection for Operation Iraqi Freedom. The 25 simple, powerful portraits of the Spokane soldiers speak volumes through the details of their eyes and expressions. The photos were all taken in Iraq as the soldiers paused in doorways of their barracks, openings of their company headquarters or during missions. These are the faces of the war in Iraq. A closing reception with Jed Conklin and the families of the featured soldiers will take place on Thursday, April 23, 2009 from 5 to 6 p.m. Free to the public.
George Longfish: A Retrospective
December 13, 2008–April 5, 2009
Professor of historical and contemporary American Indian arts at the University of California, Davis, from 1973 to 2003, George Longfish is one of the most influential of the first generation of non-traditional American Indian artists. Throughout his career as a teacher, writer, curator, and artist, Longfish contributed enormously to the Contemporary Indian Art movement. His early work focused on the formal aesthetic aspects of art. His work in more recent decades explores such issues as the “ownership” of cultural history and information, and the importance of passing cultural information on to future generations. He is best known for his large, vivid paintings of Native history incorporating stenciled texts and multiple collage elements to address topical and sometime tough and challenging contemporary issues facing Native Americans today.
Dabblers, Divers, Murderers and Travelers
October 11, 2008—March 15, 2009
Whether nesting or traveling through our wetlands, prairies, and open woods, Inland Northwest birds have stories to tell. Gathered by hunters and bird club members, and carefully mounted and preserved, dozens of bird specimens will emerge from museum storage for an exhibit that connects early explorers’ descriptions, Native American stories, and ornithologists’ methods of identifying birds and their songs.
Toys, Toys, Toys!
November 7, 2008 - March 1, 2009
A special team of guest curators - kids and their grandparents - explore childhood through a playful exhibit packed with expertly chosen antique toys from the permanent collection and contemporary ones drawn from very special private collections!
Contested Ground: The Landscape Redrawn
February 23, 2008 - August 17, 2008
Contested Ground brings together contemporary Pacific Northwest artists whose works explore our evolving, complex and increasingly freighted relationship to the natural world. Through paintings, sculpture, video and installations, these artists, though wildly different in their approaches and handling of materials, all question, challenge and deeply explore the relationship of the human to the natural. Spanning social, political, biological, environmental, philosophical and theological themes, these contemporary works all ask an essential question: Who are we and how shall we live?
Meagan Stirling: Yellow House, New Works
July 5, 2008 - August 31, 2008
Meagan Stirling is the Gallery Director at Whitworth University and a Lecturer in the Art Department. She received her B.A. in Fine Art from Whitworth in 2002 and an M.F.A. in Printmaking from the University of Wisconsin, one of premier printmaking programs in the country. She says of her work, “My artwork and research pivot on the observation of my surroundings. The images that I am attracted to are eyewitness accounts and documentaries of places and things. My interests revolve around the study of day-to-day, normal connections, rhythm, and pattern.” Yellow House is the first major exhibit of her work in Spokane and the Inland Northwest.
Spokane Medicine: Heritage & Highlights
October 21, 2006 – July 27, 2008
From country doctors to major hospitals, from home remedies to biotechnology, how did Spokane become the medical center of the Inland Empire? Spokane Medicine: Heritage & Highlights features people, places, objects and events that tell a regional story of medical innovation, diseases and epidemics, treatments, cures, and environmental health.
In Focus: What is a Trade: Donald Fels and Signboard Painters of South India
May 2, 2008 – June 29, 2008
Though our In Focus series does not by design usually feature artists from west of the Cascade Range, this will be the only opportunity for this important body of work to be seen in the Inland Northwest. Over the course of two Fulbright Fellowships, Fels worked in India with traditional commercial sign painters and created large paintings on metal that explore, question, critique and challenge the economic and social impact of the current economic globalization of our world. Organized by the Tacoma Art Museum.
Tradition and Change: A Survey of Contemporary American Indian Art
January 26, 2008 – June 29, 2008
Celebrate the extraordinary depth and diversity of Native art being made in the West today. The exhibition features works by American Indian artists such as Edgar Heap of Birds, Emmi Whitehorse, Kevin Red Star, Truman Lowe, George Flett, Preston Singletary, Marie Watt, James Lavadour, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Fritz Scholder, R.C. Gorman, T.C. Cannon, Harry Fonseca, and others. Tradition and Change offers viewers a chance to experience how the history and traditions in American Indian art contribute to a diverse, complex, and culturally rich American society. Made possible by the Missoula Art Museum through a large loan from their Contemporary American Indian Art Collection.
Samuel Colt: Arms, Art, and Invention
February 2, 2008 - April 27, 2008
Samuel Colt is a nineteenth century icon. His designs for the revolver redefined the architecture of the firearm. His marketing and manufacturing innovations made an indelible mark on America. Over 150 firearms, paintings, broadsides, photographs and decorative arts illustrate the artistry behind the industry and the industrialist.
Ready, Aim...How Firearms Work
November 15, 2007 - April 27, 2008
Ready, Aim…How Firearms Work features firearms and drawings from the permanent collection and maps the essential technological advances in firearms technology from the 14th to the 19th century.
In Focus: Sandra Dal Poggetto - Wild Time
March 7, 2008 – April 27, 2008
A painter based in Helena, Montana, Sandra Dal Poggetto is reinterpreting the Western American landscape tradition through stunningly beautiful and deeply surprising means. Some of her paintings incorporate wild bird feathers rather than pigment, in this way arcing back in human history thousands of years. Mark Stevens, the prominent New York art critic and Pulitzer Prize winner for his book on Willem de Kooning, says of Dal Poggetto’s work: “If Dal Poggetto’s art does not seek out the transcendent, neither does it aspire to some pure or innocent relation to nature. Instead, she builds her paintings around tensions, paradoxes, and impurities—a truthful reflection of our culture’s complex relationship to the landscape."
In Focus: Merrily Tompkins - Wading in the Gulf
January 4, 2008 – March 2, 2008
One of the Pacific Northwest’s most important but neglected artists, Wading in the Gulf features over three decades of found object sculptures, metal works and kinetic jewelry that this unique artist has been quietly making in her Ellensburg studio since the early 1970s. A two-time National Endowment for the Arts Fellow who showed extensively in the Northwest in the 1970s and 80s, Merrily Tompkins is virtually unknown today and this will be her first major museum exhibition in over 30 years.
The Voice of Things: The Museum’s Collections
June 23, 2007- February 3, 2008
The Voices of Things features objects from all four of our major collecting areas: Archives, History, American Indian and Art. By pursuing some non-traditional and unusual installation strategies, the exhibit is meant to offer us a new way of looking at both a museum’s collection, as well as the way we experience the presence and history of objects.
River of Memory: The Everlasting Columbia
August 25, 2007 – January 6, 2008
Over 60 pristine historical photographs capture views of an unfettered Columbia River before a fervor of dam engineering began in 1933. Following the journey of migrating salmon, the exhibit moves from the mouth of the river to its source in eastern British Columbia. Salmon images and the words of both early naturalists and current poets complement the historical photographs.
Celebrating the Fox Theater
November 2, 2007 – December 30, 2007
In honor of the reopening of Spokane’s Fox Theater after its restoration, Celebrating the Fox Theater takes us back the original grand opening of the Fox in 1931, with images and clothing from the era. Photographs of the work recently completed at the theater allow visitors to see the impressive scope of this architectural restoration project.
Sports: Breaking Records, Breaking Barriers
September 22, 2007 - January 1, 2008
Sports: Breaking Records, Breaking Barriers portrays history-making athletes from more than a dozen sports, focusing on their participation in significant events and the social contexts that influenced them. Featuring forty artifacts from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, the exhibition highlights the pioneering men and women who dominated their sports; championed their country, race, or sex; and helped others to achieve. Iconic sports objects in this exhibition include a signed Babe Ruth baseball, a handball that Abraham Lincoln used, one of Lance Armstrong's yellow jerseys, Billie Jean King's tennis outfit, and Muhammed Ali's boxing robe. This exhibition was developed by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). Audi is the exclusive national sponsor of the exhibition.
In Focus: Eileen Klatt - A Litany of Salmon
September 7, 2007– October 28, 2007
Running concurrently with the major exhibition, A River of Memory, A Litany of Salmon is an extraordinary study of the over 60 species of Pacific Northwest Salmon that are now extinct. The artist has traveled over 2000 miles visiting every tributary stream of the Columbia River that once had historic salmon runs and documented those once-magnificent fish that are now gone.
If the Shoe Fits
February 24, 2007 - September 16, 2007
No outfit is complete without footwear. From the practical to the decorative, shoes tell the world about who we are, and where we are going. If the Shoe Fits features highlights of the MAC collection and the community, ranging from couture slingbacks to winter-ready galoshes.
A T. rex Named Sue
April 28, 2007 - September 2, 2007
A T. rex Named Sue tells the story of the largest, most complete, and best preserved T. rex fossil yet discovered. The exhibition features a life sized cast of the The Field Museum's star dinosaur. Visitors of all ages will marvel at Sue's size and ferocity while learning about her scientific importance through engaging interactives. This exhibition was created by The Field Museum, Chicago, and made possible through the generosity of McDonald's Corporation.
Gaylen Hansen: Three Decades of Paintings
February 17, 2007- August 5, 2007
The Museum of Art, WSU, in conjunction with the MAC, is jointly organizing a retrospective exhibit of Palouse painter Gaylen Hansen. Hansen, 84, has lived in rural eastern Washington since 1957 when he joined the faculty at Washington State College. For the last 25 years Gaylen Hansen has been chronicling "what amuses and interest him most – his love of fly fishing, his deep feeling for the beauty of his surrounding rural land, his fascination with the animals that populate his land, and his environmental concerns."
Sudan: The Land and the People
January 20, 2007 - May 20, 2007
The 70 photographs presented in this stunning exhibition are drawn from the recent book, Sudan: The Land and the People, written by U.S. Ambassador Timothy Carney and his wife and collaborator, journalist Victoria Butler. Armed conflict, drought and famine have plagued Sudan since its independence in 1956. A peace agreement in January 2005 ended Sudan’s bloody civil war between the largely Arab north and the African south, putting people in both regions on a challenging journey to create a nation in which all Sudanese can live and prosper together. Click here for more information.
In Focus: Take the Old Road
March 2 - April 29, 2007
Travel to the Palouse, North Ferry County, Soap Lake, and Dayton, Washington to explore why some small towns are fading and others are about to bloom again. Interviews with residents old and new reveal the hard work and deep feelings associated with changes necessary to attract tourists, business and retirees. Take the Old Road is a four-part radio series by Phyllis Silver with accompanying photographic exhibition by Beth Carsrud.
Partial project support from Humanities Washington
22nd Annual Works From the Heart Contemporary Art Exhibition
March 17, 2007 – April 13, 2007
Featuring the art work (and generosity) of leading regional contemporary artists, everything on display is scheduled for auction during the annual Works From the Heart Contemporary Art Auction scheduled for Saturday, April 14, 2007.
Mutual Seduction: Cars & Costumes
April 22, 2006 - February 25, 2007
Automobiles and clothing seem to identify Americans and represent our cultural values to the world. Few functional objects offer a more seductive embodiment of freedom of expression and choice than do the cars we drive and the clothes we wear. Historic images from the Joel E. Ferris Research Library and Archives special collections, a dozen unique automobiles, and sixty mannequins dressed in Inland Northwest clothing blend together to create a high speed journey through 100 years of America’s historical and cultural landscape. Prepare to be seduced in this exhilarating exhibition! Virtual tour
Figure Skating: American Champions
November 18, 2006 - February 4, 2007
An inspiring collection of ice skating memorabilia that promulgates the State Farm United States Figure Skating Championships that Spokane is hosting during January 2007. The World Figure Skating Museum and Hall of Fame, Colorado Springs, Colorado, is generously cooperating on the development of this installation which will include colorful costumes, Olympic gold medals, and photographic images.
Image and Imagination: American Indian Photogravures by Edward S. Curtis
September 23, 2006 – January 28, 2007
Edward Curtis settled in the Puget Sound region of Washington Territory in 1887. Shortly thereafter he began photographing local Indians digging for clams and mussels on the tide flats. His sepia-toned images brought national attention. Image and Imagination highlights the aesthetic popularity of Curtis' Indian images and the criticism he has received for romanticizing native lifeways and customs. In partnership with the Spokane Public Library.
Fibers of Life: From A Weaver's View
February 4, 2006 – December 31, 2006
One of the remarkable qualities of the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture’s American Indian basket collection is a "living history." Tribal elders, cultural leaders, and traditional weavers share this view. The elders profess in unison, "All things emanate from this gift of the creator, including the materials that become the baskets." Fibers of Life highlights approximately one hundred baskets from the MAC’s collection of nearly three thousand. When one studies the insides of the baskets as much as the designs and materials on the outside, it becomes apparent that the majority were used for gathering, storing, and carrying the resources required to sustain the people’s daily lives.
Petland: One Woman's Century
May 27 - October 29, 2006
Petland is no ordinary exhibit, but a multi-faceted collection of assemblages, which pays tribute to one woman, Mamie Rand (1894-1995), who lived a life of simplicity in Spokane, Washington. Kathryn Glowen created these assemblages from thousands of objects that Mamie collected as a pet store owner, amateur musician, and accountant. The exhibit appeals to art lovers, antique collectors and American history buffs. Petland also shows that there is beauty and significance in the ordinary, and that every life is valuable and should be commemorated in some way.
Spokane Timeline: Spokane's Japanese-American Community
February 18 - October 15, 2006
A new feature within Spokane Timeline: Personal Voices exhibit highlights 120 years of Japanese regional history and culture. Japanese immigrants arrived in Spokane in the 1880s, and established restaurants, laundries, hotels, and stores in Hillyard and downtown's Trent Alley. Although these immigrants could not become American citizens until after 1952 legislation, they raised their American-born children in a world that incorporated both cultures. During World War II, the community experienced significant upheaval with the evacuation and internment program prompted by the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Mapmaker's Eye: David Thompson on the Columbia Plateau
October 8, 2005 - September 3, 2006
In 1807, Canadian David Thompson crested the Continental Divide to begin a five-year stay on the Columbia Plateau. He not only surveyed the entire length of the Columbia River, but also built the fur trade with Native tribes, and his arrival was a catalyst for revolutionary change in the Inland Northwest. This exhibit offers visitors a first-hand sense of Thompson's journeys, through his journals, maps, and mountain sketches; field sketches by Paul Kane and Henry James Warre; surveying instruments from the Smithsonian Institution; and Plateau Indian and fur trade artifacts.
Big Trouble: Scott Fife's Idaho Project
December 15, 2005 – May 7, 2006
This exhibition borrows its title from Anthony Lukas’ book Big Trouble, an extensive study of the legal drama that unfolded following the 1905 assassination of Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg. Born in northern Idaho, artist Scott Fife makes contemporary audiences revisit the trial through a series of sculptural portraits created out of archival cardboard.The cast of characters include “Big Bill” Haywood, leader of the mineworker’s union, Harry Orchard, the assassin, defense attorney Clarence Darrow, socialist Eugene Debs, and President Theodore Roosevelt.
21st Annual Works From the Heart Contemporary Art Exhibition
February 28 – March 10, 2006
Featuring the art work (and generosity) of leading regional contemporary artists, everything on display is scheduled for auction during the annual Works From the Heart Contemporary Art Auction scheduled for Saturday, March 11, 2006. Tickets are $60 for MAC members and $75 for non-members. Revenue from this event supports the operations of the art department and the Art Acquisition Fund.
Drawn to Yellowstone: Artists in America’s First National Park
November 5, 2005 – February 19, 2006
Exhibition Organizer: Museum of the American West, Autry National Center
Seemingly a place apart from civilization, Yellowstone National Park has lured generations of artists, including explorer artists like Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, and Thomas Hill. Drawn to Yellowstone: Artists in America’s First National Park features more than seventy paintings, prints, and drawings that depict the aesthetic response to Yellowstone, inviting visitors to explore the park’s rich visual history, beginning with its status as an icon of preservation to the contested land that it has become.
Land Mark: Prints by Joe Feddersen
June 11, 2005 – January 8, 2006
An exhibition of the remarkable prints by internationally renowned printmaker, college art professor and Colville artist Joe Feddersen. His artwork is inspired by personal connections to traditional woven patterns from the tribal artists of the Inland Plateau Region of the Columbia Basin.These dramatic geometric elements are prominent in the phenomenal baskets and flat-twined (cornhusk) bags from the MAC’s American Indian collection that will be exhibited alongside his visually stunning colligraphs, aquatints, and monoprints.
From Where the Sun Rises: Children of the Plateau Tribes
January 29 - November 27, 2005
This exhibit highlights the MAC's impressive American Indian collection of regional childhood artifacts. It illustrates the attention devoted to a Plateau Indian's first "baby board," their moccasins, clothing, and dolls. The workmanship of these articles demonstrates the meaningful relationship of young children to the family unit. Historical photographs supplement the objects on display.
Enchanted Visions: The Taos Society of Artists & Ancient Cultures
March 19 - September 25, 2005
Revisit Taos, New Mexico, a mythical place in the arts of the Southwest. Enchanted Visions combines paintings from the first artist colony in Taos with Southwest American Indian artifacts, objects of Hispanic culture, and historic photographs. Drawn principally from the collections of the Stark Museum of Art – which are rarely, if ever, viewed outside the state of Texas.
MAC Collects: Art For The New Millenium
October 23, 2004 – September 4, 2005
For the first time since the MAC opened its new facility, the museum has a full-scale public exhibition of the permanent art collection. Highlights include new acquisitions, old favorites, and rediscoveries. The selection team included a curator, an artist, and a member of the community. The end result is a collaborative exhibition that is idiosyncratic and full of surprises.
An Impressionist Eye:
Painting and Sculpture from the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation
February 20 – May 15, 2005
The exhibit includes work by well-known artists of the 19th and early 20th century, including Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The exhibition showcases figurative art in the French tradition, including images of women, interiors and still lifes, and leisure and country scenes.
Spokane Memories: Photographs from the Permanent Collection
September 4, 2004 – April 17, 2005
This exhibit features selections from the 100,000 photographic prints and negatives housed at the MAC, encompassing the work of many photographers and nearly every subject imaginable, from banks to breweries, parades to parks, and schools to streets.
Picturing the Century: One Hundred Years of Photography from the National Archives
December 10, 2004 - January 23, 2005
Iconic photographs illustrate major moments and trends in American history.
Keiko Hara: Seasons
The Topophilia Project - Imbuing
August 20, 2004 – January 16, 2005
Keiko Hara was raised in Japan before moving to the United States in 1971. Fortunately, she ignored her Japanese teacher’s recommendations to abandon a career in fine arts, because viewing Keiko Hara’s work is a richly rewarding experience.
Shaw McCutcheon: Editorial Cartoonist
September 15, 2005 - January 1, 2006
The Spokesman-Review's former staff member Shaw McCutcheon stopped playing golf long enough to allow the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture to cull through his extensive archives and select a number of cartoons highlighting his long career as editorial cartoonist at the newspaper (1950-1986).
Past Exhibits
