The OMFA is open to the public Tuesday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. The galleries are closed on Mondays and national holidays. Access facilities for persons with disabilities are provided by the museum through the 9th Street entrance. Admission is free. Voluntary donations of $2.00 per adult and $1.00 for children ages twelve and younger are accepted. The art museum is located at 9th and Frederica Streets, Owensboro, Kentucky.
The Owensboro Museum of Fine Art is open to all seeking to share the wonders and beauty of its diverse art collections, exciting education programs, performing arts events and glittering social occasions. Three wings, featuring 15 temporary and permanent galleries, include a decorative arts wing in an historic Civil War era structure, the John Hampden Smith House, a permanent collection wing, an atrium sculpture court, expanded education facilities and gift shoppe. Exhibitions of the permanent collection, in combination with exhibitions on loan from major American museums, galleries and important regional collections, present the visitor with an infinite variety of experiences in the visual arts world.
The permanent collection presents a visual arts mecca for diverse tastes. American, European and Asian highlights are among the treasures of internationally important works including those by French Impressionist master, Edgar Degas (1834 – 1937), English portraitist, Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769 – 1839), American painters Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904), Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827), and Frank Duveneck (1848-1919).
The Contemporary American Collection presents works by such important artists as Jack Youngerman, Robert Berks, Peter Reginato, Harry Jackson, N.A., and Joe Downing (1925-2007). A special feature of this collection is a selection of Contemporary Studio Art Glass representing artists of national and international acclaim such as William Carlson, Joel Phillip Myers and Jon Kuhn.
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
THIRTY YEARS OF GREAT ART!
April 6 to June 15, 2008
THIRTY YEARS OF GREAT ART!, an exhibition concluding the year-long celebration of Owensboro Museum of Fine Art’s 30th anniversary season, drawn from the museum’s permanent collection of internationally diverse works of art, is scheduled March 16 to June 15, 2008.
A TRIBUTE TO JOE DOWNING
April 20 - July 12, 2008
Sponsored by Owensboro Grain Company
An exhibition in celebration of a lifetime of creativity and international success features more than 50 works by the late Kentucky expatriate painter, Joseph Dudley Downing, who died in Menerbes, France, in December 2007.
Reflecting five decades of the artist’s life, this exhibition includes works from private and public Owensboro collections highlighted by two major assemblages commissioned for the Owensboro Museum of Fine Art’s
Atrium Sculpture Court
.
Downing studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and his first exhibition in Paris in the early 1950’s was viewed by Pablo Picasso who praised his work as “well done”. His exhibition record is world wide, as are his credits in museum permanent collections.
THIRTY YEARS OF GREAT ART: THE THREE DIMENSIONAL COLLECTION
April 20 - July 12, 2008
Sponsored by Owensboro Grain Company
This exhibition concludes the year-long celebration of the museum’s thirtieth anniversary season. The exhibition of forty-five three dimensional objects from the museum’s permanent collection features contemporary artists who have made significant contributions to the history of American art and includes sculpture in bronze, stone, wood and glass.
Complementing the three dimensional works is an exhibition of paintings in oil, watercolor, acrylic and casein. Among these images are landscapes, cityscapes and interior scenes by nationally recognized artists.
UPCOMING EVENTS
BRONZE BUFFALO UNVEILING
Opening of Ryan Park and Contemporary Sculpture Park
The unveiling of THE BRONZE BUFFALO TRACE at Ryan Park, Owensboro Museum of Fine Art’s new community events area, showcasing Owensboro’s first mammoth sculpture of a bison, created by western artist T. D. Kelsey, is scheduled July 26, 2008. Concurrent with this will also be the opening of the
9th Street
sculpture park for contemporary art featuring a massive painted steel construction by Peter Reginato designed to complement the community’s growing outdoor sculpture collection.
KENTUCKY MASTERS
Early Artists of the Commonwealth
KENTUCKY MASTERS: Early Artists of the Commonwealth, featuring more than fifty paintings by Kentucky’s most celebrated early artists, is scheduled at the Owensboro Museum of Fine Art July 26 through October 12, 2008. Showcasing artists who documented the Commonwealth as it appeared in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the exhibition includes works by Paul Sawyier (1865-1917), Carl Christian Brenner (1838-1888), Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942), Frank F. English (1854-1922), Harvey Joiner (1852-1932), Patty Thum (1853-1926), Helen Marie Turner (1858-1958) and Robert Burns Wilson (1850-1916).
