From cowboys and Indians to landscapes and man-made environments, images of the American West are tangled in myth and reality. A variety of themes organized by subject matter and visual relationships invite visitors to forget about historic periods and styles and look at art in new ways. Fans of classic Western and Native American art can view these works alongside contemporary works.

Twelve miniature interiors focus on the theme of laundry and its place in different times and countries.

Viola uses the communications media to create art that is direct and profound. In The Crossing, Viola has placed a large projection screen in the center of a darkened gallery. On both sides of this screen, a human form approaches the viewer from a deep distance. Once this figure of a man stops, the two natural elements of fire and water begin to appear on the screen. On one side, a small flame licks at the figure's feet, and on the other a small stream begins to drip and then pour on the figure's head.

Dougherty is an internationally acclaimed installation artist whose large-scale works allude to nests, cocoons and hives built by animals as well as the manmade forms of huts, haystacks and baskets. Dougherty weaves together natural materials that are indigenous to each site-specific area into creations that seem to have sprouted up naturally in their settings.

The desert landscape has lured painters and photographers throughout the 20th century. Initially attracted to the mild winters, intense sunlight and changing landscape, artists captured the desert environment with a variety of perspectives. This exhibition presents artistic visions and expressions from majestic vistas to changed landscapes. By comparing pristine, uninhabited desert views in the first half of the century to the surrealist, inhabited scenes eroded by time and deterioration in the latter part of the century, the viewer is invited to contemplate the distinction between reality, the altered landscape and the impact of human presence on the land.

McLaughlin, a southern California artist, developed a distinctive style of abstraction referred to as "geometric Western abstraction." Inspired by his lifelong study of the art of Asia, he instilled in his art an Eastern sense of stillness and quietude. While he is often compared to Minimalists, McLaughlin belongs to an earlier generation as he developed his mature style of simplified geometric forms by 1948 - a decade before the emergence of Minimalism.

The exhibition of modern sculptures from the famed Weiner collection includes major works by Arp, Calder, Lipchitz, Marini, Modigliani, Moore, Noguchi, Picasso, Schuler, Zajac and other significant sculptors of the 20th century. On extended loan from Gwendolyn Weiner, the art was inherited from her parents Ted and Lucille Weiner who had residences in Palm Springs and Fort Worth, Texas. The modern sculpture collection demonstrates the collectors' strong and fine-tuned sense of personal preferences and fascination with the sculptural forms. The collection has been on extended loan to the Palm Springs Art Museum since 1970 with sculptures donated by Gwendolyn Weiner over the years.

No single person has been a more definitive witness to the evolution of modern architecture in Southern California than the great photographer Julius Shulman. Shulman was not only present; he was, in fact, the narrator of this saga, telling the story to the world through his photographic documentation.  Sensitive to light, structure and detail, Shulman captured the essential elements of the buildings he was shooting with beauty and masterful illustrative ability. His dazzling photographic work turned buildings into icons, giving us both an aesthetic and an historical record.

Hall's paintings are inspired by the artist's visits to Palm Springs' pools and resorts and Los Angeles' posh Westside and beaches. Depictions of privileged, beautiful women grinning with self-satisfaction against the inevitable ravages of time became the basis of Hall's imagery. Employing a realist style of painting, the artist celebrates the color and quality of light in sunny environments. Yet, these emotionally charged works pack compelling thoughts for viewers who choose to look beyond the pretty faces and scenes. Beneath the surface beauty lurks a certain "edge" evoking an uneasy feeling that something is amiss. In revealing herself through these poignant and personal images, the artist lures us into deeper consideration of our own yearnings for eternal youth and our inability to face what inevitably comes with human mortality.

The creative pulse of the art scene across the United States is represented by approximately of 50 works in a wide range of artistic media selected by juror Susan Parke, former executive director of the Museum of Northwest Art in La Conner, Washington.

Featuring approximately 50 works in various media, this annual exhibition offers a view of members' current works selected by juror Mary Kay Stolz, Creative Director of the Film and Costume Design Advanced Study Program at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising.

Outstanding artworks by Coachella Valley high school and College of the Desert Students receive much deserved recognition in this juried exhibition. Works are selected to present a wide range of interpretations of a theme in a variety of media.

The Teen Art Group (TAG) at the Palm Springs Art Museum began this exhibition by looking at a range of prints from the permanent collection. They quickly decided that some of the most visually interesting pieces were named Untitled. Each member chose a piece that moved them and piqued their curiosity.

One glance at the vigorous brushwork and spirited color exhibited inGround (1989-90), and the viewer is drawn in; seduced by the sheer joyof creation which Joan Mitchell must surely have been experiencing;seduced by the colors, textures and movement of the materials. Much ofour response to great works of art is intimately tied to the inherentqualities of the materials an artist chooses coupled with the energyand talent required to create them. 

MUSEUM ART CAMP: ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
The Date Farmers
July - September
Zone 101 in the  Hoover Gallery

Local artists Armando Lerma and Carlos Ramirez, aka The Date Farmers, create an original installation in Zone 101 in the Hoover Gallery this summer as part of the museum's annual Artist in Residence program.

"A world of cultural hybrids and collisions" animates the work of Mexican-born San Francisco artist Enrique Chagoya, who taps Mexico's complex history, international politics, world religions and popular culture in his art. A single work incorporates a diverse selection of visual material from various cultures and time periods. Contemporary icons like Mickey Mouse, Superman, Wonder Woman, Che Guevara, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush may intermingle with more ancient figures, such as the Aztec god Mictlantecutli, Buddha, and the Virgin of Guadalupe among other religious icons in fantastic compositions. In his lively work, Chagoya also pays homage to history's other socially engaged artists, such as Honore Daumier, Francisco Goya, Jose Guadalupe Posada, John Heartfield and Philip Guston.

Nickolas Muray (1892-1965) came to America in 1913 from Hungary. During Muray's forty-five year career as a New York photographer, he developed a growing reputation that began during the decade of the 1920s when he photographed notable figures from high society. At the time of his death, most Americans had seen, at one time or another, Muray's portraits of celebrities, presidents, or advertisements that were regularly featured in Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, McCall's and the Ladies Home Journal.

Community Education Programs will feature various events regarding this exhibit.
Click here to view.

This exhibition, specifically organized for the Palm Springs Art Museum and personally curated by Mark Coetzee, Rubell Family Collection director, is the first of other future collaborations between the two museums involving a range of initiatives featuring exhibitions drawn from the rich holdings of the Rubell Family Collection. 

Born on a ranch near Fresno, California, Maynard Dixon (1875-1946) became a noted illustrator, landscape artist and mural painter of the early 20^th-century American West. His favored subjects included landscapes (especially the desert), Indians, early settlers and cowboys. Influenced by modernism, he developed a unique style of painting bold masses of color with simple lines which led him into mural painting where he excelled much of his professional life

A survey of more than one hundred works drawn from this great American artist’s lengthy career. Thiebaud (born 1920) has long been a mainstay of California’s cultural and artistic communities. Since the early 1960s, he has shaped a personal artistic vision that embraces different subjects and stylistic variations but is always characterized by his blending of realism and abstraction, a penchant for dazzling light and high-keyed color, and a gift for painterly, sensuous handling of oils and pastels. Best known for his still life compositions of bakery goods and delicatessen counters with their distinctive brand of nostalgic Americana, he also has specialized in large-scale portraits, studies of Northern California landscape, and cityscapes featuring San Francisco’s vertiginous geometry of nearly-vertical streets and sidewalks.

The kinds of subjects of the images of the American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) ranged from portraits to still lifes, from classical sculptures to contemporary nudes, some of which were overtly sexual and made him at least temporarily notorious. His most lasting legacy, however, and by far the largest portion of his considerable photographic output, is his portraiture which reflects and embodies the New York cultural milieu of the late 1970s and the 1980s. Within his roster of clients can be found a pantheon of many of the most significant artists, art dealers, writers, musicians, designers, dealers, actors and actresses of the period as well as a host of ancillary figures.

This exhibition, a comprehensive forty-year retrospective of Tagliapietra's art and career, documents and celebrates his remarkable achievements as a contemporary artist. The exhibition includes 169 art works that range from a room-size installation of his impressive Endeavor boat series, to groupings of masterful goblets, to elegant and evocative sculptural forms. Tagliapietra is widely revered as the master of glassblowing, an inspiring teacher and the elder statesman who is credited with shaping the course of international Studio Glass.

This select group of outstanding Impressionist and Modern paintings on loan from a private collection demonstrates how artists from the late 19th to late 20th century were willing and driven to experiment with both content and materials. It represents Impressionist forays into the nature and effects of light and atmosphere, which are translated as pigment on canvas; Post Impressionist amplifications of emotion and expression through vivid color; and mid-20th-century abstractions animated by hue and gesture.

The Palm Springs Art Museum's annual summer Artists in Residence program will feature two local artists who will create an on-site art installation at the museum. Artists Cathy Allen and Joan Silver will create Gardens of Exchange, an installation that will be centered around a large "tree" made out of papier-mâché (pictured at left) and utilize text from author Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, a fictional conversation between world traveler Marco Polo and emperor Kublai Kahn. In the text, Polo describes many imaginary cities in the Kahn's realm, which helps him understand his empire past mere descriptions of the cities. The artists will complete the installation at the museum and work with the museum's Art Camp attendees to help them create their own imagined cities.

The Palm Springs Art Museum recently received three major photography gifts that have brought national attention to our growing collection. Some of the most stunning works from these gifts have been organized into this exhibition, which features compelling works from post-World War II American photography. The three collectors who have donated these significant photographs are Patricia and Patrick Kennedy, Jeanne and Dan Fauci, and Pamela and Joe Bonino.

The Palm Springs Art Museum is fortunate to have in its permanent collection significant works by major California, national and international artists. Represented in this exhibition are prints, paintings and sculptures created using a variety of traditional and non-traditional materials and methods ranging in scale from the diminutive to the grand. A number of issues relating to the creative process, abstraction versus representation and an exploration of the individual’s place in the cosmos connect this diverse body of works and offer the viewer a variety of possibilities for multi-leveled interaction and interpretation. Major works by Helen Frankenthaler, Soonja Oh Kim, Ed Ruscha, Sam Francis, Helen Lundeberg, Lita Albuquerque, Debra Butterfield and others are featured.