MUSCATINE, IOWA (May 31, 2023) — The Muscatine Art Center is excited to announce the opening of three exhibitions this June. The 47th annual Birds in Art opens on both floors of the Stanley Gallery on June 1 and will be on view through September 10. Artist Philip Laber’s printed works, House of Cards, opens on the second floor of the Musser McColm mansion on June 3 and will remain on view until August 6. Finally, the Iowa Watercolor Society Traveling Exhibition returns to the Muscatine Art Center on June 8 on the second floor of the Musser McColm mansion and will close July 30.
Birds in Art, an exhibition organized by the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, is traveling to the Muscatine Art Center for the first time. Since 1976, Birds in Art has showcased the remarkable talents of more than 1,000 international artists, who presented their best work interpreting birds and related subject matter. Birds in Art is recognized globally as the exhibition setting the standard for avian art.
This travelling exhibition features fifty entries from the 47th annual Birds in Art exhibition. The full exhibition of work by 118 artists was presented at the Woodson Art Museum in Wasau, Wisconsin, September through November 2022. Three notable jurors evaluated nearly 1,000 images from 570 artists from around the world. Bronze, acrylics, oils, watercolor, linocut, sandstone, and other mediums are represented in the traveling exhibition.
Philip Laber, Partisan Divide (2010)
Philip Laber, former Professor Emeritus of Art at Northwest Missouri State, will showcase his works in the Musser McColm mansion. His exhibit, House of Cards, is a suite of experimental printmaking that examines and metaphorically represents American and global cultures and politics and the resulting consequences upon daily life, edited through the eyes of a mythical and whimsical “Everyman.” The works are a hybrid approach that combines traditional etching and engraving processes with digital imagining and contemporary printmaking.
In the summer of 2016, Laber retired from teaching photography, printmaking, and drawing at Northwest Missouri State to become a full-time artist. His creative interests remain experimental printmaking and photography, and more recently, exploring acrylic painting. The public will have an opportunity to meet Philip Laber on Sunday, June 25, at the Friends Annual Ice Cream Social.
Jan Vander Linden , Spring Green
The Iowa Watercolor Society (IWS) traveling exhibition features the work of thirty Iowa watercolor artists, and judges have awarded first through fifth place winners along with Honorable Mentions and a winner for the Transparent category. The Iowa Watercolor Society was organized in 1977 by a small group of enthusiastic watercolorists. IWS now celebrates well over 150 members and offers the opportunity for interested painters to network with artists statewide.
Artist Jo Myers-Walker, whose watercolor is included in this year’s exhibit, will host a “toast” to the late watercolorist, Carol Steinmetz. Myers-Walker will lead a watercolor floral workshop in memory of Carol Steinmetz on Saturday, July 22, starting at 1:30PM. Visit muscatineartcenter.org for details.
