Past Exhibitions
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Watercolor USA
The Springfield Art Museum's annual juried exhibition featuring the best in contemporary American watermedia.
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Holding Space: Contemporary Enamel Vessels
This group exhibition focuses on the enamel process through an examination of the vessel form by 10 local to international artists. Organized by Curator of Art Sarah Buhr, in collaboration with Springfield artist Sarah Perkins.
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All School Exhibition
The annual all school exhibition features work by student artists from across our community, in kindergarten through twelfth grades. This exhibit celebrates Youth Art Month and has been a staple of our exhibition schedule since 1932.
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Rodney Frew
A focused exhibit sharing a wide range of work by longtime local artist and art educator Rodney Frew, pulled from the Museum's permanent collection.
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Frieda Logan: Swap Meet
This focus exhibition features paintings in acrylic and watercolor by local artist Frieda Logan, pulled from the Museum's permanent collection and featuring heartfelt depictions of daily life in the American Midwest in the 1980s.
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Lyrical Abstraction
This exhibit features work by a group of artists working in America in the 1960s and 1970s, dubbed "Lyrical Abstractionists" - who sought to expand the idea of abstract painting and to reassert the importance of the formal elements of line and color. The exhibit is pulled from the Museum's permanent collection and includes work by Robert Natkin, Larry Poons, and Sam Francis, among others.
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Humanities, Vol. 2
This exhibit features work pulled from the Museum's collection, as selected by three local artists - musician Jin J. X, poet Kate Murr, and dancer Sarah Wilcoxon. These works will be exhibited alongside new work created by each artist in their own medium as we investigate the spark that begins a connection with a work of art.
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Humanities, Vol. 1
This exhibition features work selected by Museum staff and Board and Committee members to highlight the people who keep the Museum moving forward and the connections they have made with the Museum's permanent collection
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Yoko Ono: Mend Piece
A participatory exhibition centered on Yoko Ono's belief in communal mending as an act of healing. This exhibition is organized by the American Federation of Arts.
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The Open Window
An exhibition pulled from the Museum's permanent collection featuring a variety of works which either follow or challenge the metaphor of "Alberti's window" (single-point perspective). The cornerstone of the exhibition is Lois Dodd's painting "Broken Window with View."
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Linda Lopez: Long Lost
A major solo exhibition of the work of ceramicist Linda Lopez featuring immersive spaces, mosaics, and porcelain ceramic sculptures.
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The Inferno of Dante: Etchings by Michael Mazur
This exhibit presents Michael Mazur's full portfolio of 41 etchings illustrating "The Inferno," written by Dante Alighieri in the 14th century. Each etching is paired with the relevant excerpted portions of Dante’s poem in Italian with Robert Pinsky’s English translations.
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Rose O'Neill and the Kewpie Comics
This exhibition features fifteen hand-colored proofs from the Sunday Kewpie comic series, written and illustrated by Rose O'Neill, as well as an additional three proofs from the more modern format Kewpie comic strip, published in the 1930s.
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Jacques Callot: Varie Figure
This exhibition features work in the series Varie Figure, or Various Figures (1621-1628) by the pre-eminent French printmaker Jacques Callot. The series contains sixteen works pulled from the Museum's permanent collection. Most works feature double images of the same figure. It has been suggested that this series served as a drawing book or model for learning rapid, freehand drawing.
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Shape, Form, and Color
This exhibit explores three of the commonly used elements of art - shape, form, and color - through representative examples pulled from the Museum's extensive collection of American watermedia.
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Four by Four 2020
This biennial invitational exhibition recognizes and encourages artists working in all media in the four-state region of Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kansas.
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Afloat: Artists and Rivers
This exhibition, pulled entirely from the Museum’s collection, explores a wide range of river-based work from our local rivers and beyond, reflecting upon the importance of this resource as both a natural amenity and a source of artistic inspiration.
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the interference structure provides
This exhibit presents work by a group of loosely related artists from the 1960s and 1970s including Michael Kidner, Garo Antreasian, and Gordon House, who were interested in the ways in which systemic structures could be applied to the process of art making.
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Eye to I: Self-Portraits from the National Portrait Gallery
Organized and drawn from the collection of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, this exhibition explores how artists in the United States have chosen to portray themselves through painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, and video since the beginning of the 20th century. These works raise important questions about self-reflection and self-perception
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This & That: Cartoons by Bob Palmer
This exhibition will feature over 100 original political cartoons created by local cartoonist Bob Palmer during his tenure at the "Springfield News-Leader". Between 1953 and 1991, Palmer made a daily cartoon covering everything from daily life in the Ozarks to national presidential elections to international issues ranging from Middle East Peace negotiations to concerns over Foreign Aid.
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Framed: The Art of the Picture Frame
This exhibit utilizes the Springfield Art Museum's permanent collection to demonstrate frame styles and trends covering both hand-carved and mass-produced molded ornament frames, as well as to illustrate the important role of framing in conserving and preserving artwork.
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Shawn Bitters: Burn Out
An outdoor installation composed of 23 printed "stones" that, when encoded, reveal a narrative of the landscape. This installation will be installed on the grounds of the Art Museum and Phelps Grove Park and is a collaboration between the Museum and the Springfield-Greene County Park Board.
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Anders Zorn: Etchings
At the end of the 19th century, Anders Leonard Zorn (1860-1920) was one of the most well-known portraitists in France, England, and the United States. His talent, and knack for meeting the right people, led him to paint portraits of international celebrities including three U.S. Presidents, Swedish royalty, American railroad tycoons, and renowned artists. This exhibition will present all 96 etchings from the Museum’s permanent collection, showcasing the full collection for the first time in many years.
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Randy Bacon: The Road I Call Home
This exhibit features 45 large-scale portraits of homeless individuals from our community taken by local photographer Randy Bacon. Each portrait includes a personal narrative detailing the portrait subject's unique circumstances leading to their homelessness.
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Ubuhle Women: Beadwork and the Art of Independence
This traveling exhibition presents a spectacular overview of a new form of bead art, the "ndwango" (cloth), developed by a community of women living and working together in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The exhibition was developed by the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum and is organized for tour by International Arts & Artists, Washington, D.C.
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Art in our City
This exhibition highlights and celebrates the creativity of our community focusing on artists living and working in the many neighborhoods that make up our city.
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Nick Cave
This exhibition features a selection of work by multi-disciplinary artist Nick Cave including pieces from his "Soundsuit" series, "Tondo" series, and the video "Drive-By."
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El Grabado: Contemporary Cuban Printmaking
An exhibition of over 70 prints by thirty-three Cuban artists who have all worked, at one time or another, at the Taller Experimental de Gráfica de Habana – the oldest, continuously running print workshop in Cuba. This exhibition is pulled entirely from the collection of the Racela Educational and Charitable Foundation.
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Decades: 90 Years of Collecting
This exhibition explores the history and growth of the Museum's permanent collection in celebration of the Museum's 90th Anniversary.
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Four by Four 2018
This biennial invitational exhibition recognizes and encourages artists working in all media in the four-state region of Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kansas.
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Frolic of the Mind
This exhibition traces the prolific career of artist, illustrator, author, poet, and inventor Rose O'Neill. Perhaps most remembered as the creator of the Kewpie doll, O'Neill was also one of the highest paid illustrators in the early years of the 20th century providing illustrations for Puck Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal, Collier's, and many others.
Contact Us
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Springfield Art Museum
Email the Museum
1111 East Brookside Drive
Springfield, MO 65807
Phone: 417-837-5700
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