The UNM Art Museum has contributed the loan of its John Chamberlain (American, 1927-2011) foam sculpture from 1966 to the Guggenheim Museum's New York exhibition, John Chamberlain: Choices. A one-time instructor of graduate students at the University of New Mexico (1966), Chamberlain is noted in the canon of American art for his "car crash" sculptures which were a brilliant, three-dimensional response to abstract expressionist painting. His tireless pursuit of discovery and his intuitive process distinguish him as one of the most important American sculptors of our time.

The Guggenheim's John Chamberlain: Choices (opening February 24, 2012 and traveling to Guggenheim Bilbao) comprises nearly 100 works, from his earliest monochromatic welded iron-rod sculptures to works in foam and the large-scale foil creations of recent years. This presentation encompasses Chamberlain’s shifts in scale, materials, and methods, informed by the assemblage aesthetic that has been central to his artistic practice.


For more in formation about the exhibition, please visit
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The UNM Art Museum is pleased to participate with its sister institution, The Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, on the occasion of their groundbreaking exhibition, “Agnes Martin: Before the Grid.” On loan are two Agnes Martin paintings from the permanent collection of the UNM Art Museum: Untitled, 1954 and New Mexican Mountain Landscape, Taos, c. 1947.

Agnes Martin was a graduate student at UNM, Albuquerque, from 1946 to about 1950, while simultaneously earning her M.S. from Columbia Teachers College, New York, which she received in 1950.  She most likely painted Landscape, Taos, during one of the UNM Art Department’s field sessions in Taos which she attended every summer from 1946 - 52.  Its brisk handwork and the use of watercolor were no doubt required for the classes, but there is ample evidence of a “Taos” style in this early Martin, especially evidenced in the work of Andrew Dasburg, Victor Higgins, Josef Bakos, and Ward Lockwood, all of whom had been affected by the watercolors of John Marin, whose visits to Taos in 1929 and 1930 had sparked a renaissance in plein-air painting.


For more information please visit The Harwood Museum of Art

Over one hundred works of art by the late Frederick Hammersley (American, 1919-2009.) were acquired by the UNM Art Museum in late December 2011. Among this group is the Museum’s purchase of Right On, 1995, from the “Organics” series, thirty rare figure drawings, ca. 1941 – 1985, and, a complete set of seventy-two computer prints, created in 1969, all of which were generously donated by the Frederick Hammersley Foundation.

The President and Executive Director, Kathleen Shields, has said, “The Frederick Hammersley Foundation is very pleased to donate these works to the University of New Mexico Art Museum. As one of our first gifts in Frederick Hammersley's name, it exemplifies our mission to promote the value of art in the life of the community through donating to public, and especially educational, institutions with which he was associated.”

Frederick Hammersley is critically acclaimed and most well-known as an essential contributor to  “hard-edge” painting of the late 1950’s and early ‘60s, a trend in non-objective art which was launched in the landmark exhibition, “Four Abstract Classicists,” (1959) organized by the LA County Museum of Art, traveling to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Institute of Contemporary Art, London; and, Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. At the age of 88, Hammersley’s work was included in the 2007-2009 exhibition, “Birth of the Cool,” organized by the Orange County Museum of Art, Los Angeles. His art is in the permanent collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; University Art Museum, Berkeley; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and, the Butler Institute of American Art, among other fine institutions. 

For more information on the art of Frederick Hammersley:

http://www.amy-nyc.com/artists/frederick-hammersley/
http://www.lalouver.com/html/hammersley