The Art Museum of West Virginia University celebrated its seventh birthday last month. Since its opening in August 2015, the museum has inspired and educated more than 35,000 visitors.

The Art Museum of WVU’s mission to provide a welcoming and stimulating educational and research environment for diverse audiences to experience the transforming power of art wouldn’t be possible without incredible donors who helped fund the building, the museum’s collection of more than 4,000 works of art, programming and traveling exhibitions.

The Art Museum of West Virginia University is pleased to announce generous support from Art Bridges to develop and tour a major exhibition of the work of Blanche Lazzell, one of the most progressive American artists of the first half of the twentieth century. A West Virginia native, Lazzell created some of the earliest abstract paintings in the United States and is one of only 23 artists currently represented in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s At the Dawn of a New Age: Early Twentieth-Century American Modernism. While Lazzell’s role in avant-garde American art is recognized within specialists’ circles, she has not received a major solo exhibition in nearly two decades and is due for a reassessment. The award from Art Bridges allows the Art Museum of West Virginia University to create such an exhibition from their extensive holdings, now increased by the museum’s acquisition of four new works by the artist, including the white line color woodblock print West Virginia University Farmhouse (1950).

Established in 2017, the Art Bridges foundation is dedicated to expanding access to American art across the U.S. Art Bridges works with museums of all sizes to provide financial and strategic support to get art out of storage and into communities. The foundation supports arts projects that educate, insprire, and deepen engagement with local audiences. 

The Art Museum of West Virginia University presents “Storywork: The Prints of Marie Watt, From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation” through Dec. 11.

Located in the Upper Gallery at the Art Museum of WVU, “Storywork” celebrates the work of Marie Watt (Seneca, b. 1967), one of the country’s most celebrated contemporary artists, whose work draws on personal experience, Indigenous traditions, proto-feminism, mythology, and art history.
“Storywork” is a comprehensive look at Watt’s 30-year career, including more than 50 original prints and sculptural works. The exhibition also showcases Watt’s deep veneration for Indigenous narratives, especially those informed by her own Seneca heritage.

The Art Museum of WVU has selected participants for its inaugural Art Museum Faculty Fellowship and Jacknowitz Summer Internship for Summer 2022. Both of these positions are central to the Art Museum of WVU’s efforts in engaging both students and faculty in object-centered learning and professional development.

Dr. Lisa Di Bartolomeo will serve as the inaugural Art Museum of WVU Faculty Fellow. Over a period of four weeks this summer, Di Bartolomeo will work closely with curator Robert Bridges, and educational programs manager Dr. Heather Harris to select works from the museum’s collection and develop an exhibition and related materials for display in the McGee Gallery in Spring 2023. The Faculty Fellowship is designed to provide the opportunity for faculty and instructors from across disciplines to enhance their teaching and scholarship by engaging with the Art Museum’s permanent collection of more than 4,000 objects. A teaching professor in the Department of World Languages, Literatures & Linguistics, Di Bartolomeo will integrate the exhibition into her course, “The Holocaust in East European Literature and Film,” and also present a public program at the Art Museum during the run of the exhibition. She was selected from a pool of applicants to an open call to all WVU clinical, teaching, and service track faculty as well faculty equivalents and other professionals with teaching responsibilities.

The Art Museum of WVU Fellowship program is an opportunity for faculty and instructors from across disciplines to enhance their teaching and scholarship by engaging with the Art Museum’s permanent collection of more than 4,000 objects. All full-time faculty (tenure or non-tenure track) on the Morgantown campus are eligible. This includes clinical, teaching, and service track faculty as well faculty equivalents and other professionals with teaching responsibilities.

Fellows will collaborate with museum staff in the summer of 2022 to develop a small (approximately 20 objects) exhibition that integrates themes and concepts from their teaching and research practice with the Art Museum’s collection. In the summer of 2022, the fellow will receive $3600 in summer research funding as they research objects for potential inclusion in the exhibition. They will also meet with Art Museum staff to plan and draft interpretive materials such as exhibition didactics, accompanying essays, and education guides. During the exhibition period (Spring semester 2023 or Fall semester 2023), the fellow is expected to substantively integrate the resulting exhibition into their curriculum for the chosen semester and to serve as an ambassador for departmental and college colleagues to do the same. They are also expected to participate in at least one public program at the Art Museum related to the exhibition.

“True Colors: Picturing Identity” is a new exhibition featuring selections from the New York collection of James Cottrell and Joseph Lovett exhibited for the very first time in West Virginia—including major works by Keith Haring, Deborah Kass, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol, among others.

Together with objects from the Art Museum’s permanent collection, “True Colors” includes paintings, sculpture, prints, ceramics, and photographs by 20 contemporary artists—all of whom use the human figure to explore and express diverse aspects of both personal and collective identities. Many of these works challenge traditional art historical narratives that have often excluded marginalized groups, including women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ individuals.