Patrons of the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art have two new exhibits to check-out this weekend.
The Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art and the St. Joseph Friends of the Shelter have partnered on an exhibition that focuses on animals. The “Beauty of Our Beasts” celebrates furry, scaled, and feathered friends. According to a press release, a call for artwork was made to the general public with no requirements made regarding the artist’s age simply that they create a masterpiece of their best friend, their pet. The exhibition does include 99 works of art from 70 artists, including 37 students from St. Paul Lutheran School. Five states are represented: Arkansas, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, and New York.
There are 43 works for sale with proceeds to be divided between AKMA and the Friends of the Shelter. This display of small artworks of pets of all kinds will be on display from June 9-October 8, 2017 at the AKMA.
A second exhibit, The Restless Regionalist: The Art of Joe Jones will debut Sunday at the Museum.
According to a news release, around sixty works by Joseph John Jones (1909-1963) from the Moffett Collection will tell the story of a radical artist who beat the odds of a rough childhood in St. Louis to be counted as a nationally-important American artist. Jones is known for politically-charged pieces addressing social injustices such as Klu Klux Klan lynchings and workers’ strikes, agitating in his own artistic way for social reforms as a deeply committed member of the American Communist Party. Even as a child of ten years, Jones had run-ins with local St. Louis police, and spent time in a youth detention facility before running away from home to California and getting arrested again for vagrancy. Poverty was a constant companion throughout the artists’s life and in consequence Jones could never afford instruction so was largely self-taught. His political philosophies were also gained through independent reading and thought. Steeped in Karl Marx’s Das Kapital and Communist Manifesto, Jones became a leader in what became known as “Marxart,” featuring depictions of workers of the world uniting and achieving a better society for themselves. The artist’s sense of regional ties is expressed through gritty scenes of American life in the Heartland countryside as well as in urban settings included in this exhibition. Supplemental works by close friends such as Henry Varnum Poor (1887-1970) and colleagues.
The exhibition will be on display through September 10th.