Friday, November 29, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Public Peek

Las Vegas art collectors offer public chance to view works with new exhibit

Contemporary, pop and 19th century French paintings from local collectors are on view at the Las Vegas Art Museum. Photo by Christine H. Wetzel.

Anyone who says there's no major art in Las Vegas is wrong. It's just hanging on collectors' walls.

But the Las Vegas Art Museum's latest exhibition, which features contemporary, pop and 19th century, pre-Impressionist art, brings privately owned art to the public via "Las Vegas Collects."

All of the works on view are owned by local collectors Wally Goodman, Patrick Duffy, Lee Cagley, Brian Cantor, David M. Carver and Marc Glimcher.

The exhibit is part of the museum's effort to build its own permanent collection of major art works.

Museum executive director Marianne Lorenz says that effort has not been developed. "But it's one of the things we're actively trying to do."

Most museums begin building that type of collection from private collectors and "this exhibit will educate the public about the joys of collecting," she says.

Many of the artists on view in the pop art area will be familiar to many patrons. Works late in Andy Warhol's career are on view, including "The Marx Brothers" (1980), "$$$$" (1982) and "Moonwalk" (1987).

Plus there's Jasper Johns' "Figure O" (1968); Robert Rauschenberg's "Support" (1973), "Tag" (1997) and "Unique Untitled" (no date); Roy Lichtenstein's "Sweet Dreams, Baby" (1965), "Brushstroke" (no date) and "I Love Liberty" (1982); Jean-Michel Basquiat "Shoe Drawing" (no date); Jim Dine's "Scissors and Rainbow" (1969); and Claes Oldenburg's "Colossal Screw in Landscape -- Type 2" (1976) and "Saw/Tie" (1994). Oldenburg's work will be familiar to Las Vegans who have seen the "Flashlight" sculpture on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus.

A work by Claude Monet, "Customs House at Varengeville" (1897), is the centerpiece of the French art on display. The remainder of the works are by members of the Barbizon School of painting, including Jules Dupre's "Paysage" (1830-32); Jules Breton's "Fileuse Bretonne" (no date); Constant Troyon's "Mill Stream With Fisherman" (no date); Etienne Pierre Theodore Rousseau's "Au Bords de la Loire" (1845-55); and Jules Alexis Muenier's "Young Peasant Taking His Horse to the Water Hole" (1891).

The contemporary art portion of the exhibit comprises paintings and sculptures from the past 10 to 20 years by such artists as Robert Colescott and his painting "Shakespeare's Africans" (1993); Eddie Dominguez's mixed media "Influence" (1990); Ted Kuykendall's "Self Portrait" (1987); Diane Marsh's "Forevermore" (1989); Matthew Radford's "The Street" (1991) and "2nd Avenue" (1993); and Sol LeWitt's "Wavy Vertical Brushstrokes" (1996).

The exhibit runs through Jan. 10.

Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for seniors, $2 for students and free for museum members and children 12 and younger.