Hanging Around Austin

Hanging Around Austin: 5 shows celebrating the art of paint and printmaking

Art on paper! We've got plenty of it hanging around town this time of year, thanks to PrintAustin and its annual celebration of all things inked and struck. We’re in the home stretch of PrintAustin now, but there are still plenty of shows out there for your viewing — and learning — pleasure.

New Perspectives in Printmaking
ART on 5th, through February 14
Fine art printers Cathy Savage, Jesus De La Rosa, Ericka Walker, Michael Barnes, Samantha Parker Salazar and Paula Cox unite to display more than 30 pieces that show how the ideas and methods of today work to push the traditional bounds of the medium. This one closes fairly soon but comes highly recommended thanks to its multiple flavors of breathtaking stuff.

PrintAustin: The Contemporary Print
Big Medium Gallery at Canopy, through February 21
Kathryn Polk and Kevin McNamee-Tweed performed the unenviable task of selecting 25 representative works of contemporary printmaking technique from a pool of more than 600 candidates, and we as patrons are richer for it. Participating artists include Amber Heaton, Tom Druecker, Teresa Gomez-Martorell, Oscar Gillespie, Erin Kerr, Juergen Strunck and many others.

JIM SHERRADEN Personal Woodcuts: 1983 to Present
Yard Dog Gallery, through February 28
Despite a body of work befitting the longtime resident master printer and curator at Hatch Show Print, a legendary poster house in Nashville, Jim Sherraden has only recently started touring the gallerysphere with his solo exhibitions. Sherraden's retrospective at Yard Dog emphasizes the element of wood in the printing medium, showcasing dissected and reassembled compilations of his colorful and idiosyncratic monoprints.

Patrick Puckett: Solo Show
Wally Workman Gallery, through February 28
In one of the few non-printmade shows around town this month, Austin painter Patrick Puckett reunites with the walls at Wally Workman for a second solo exhibition of his expressionistic scenes and portraits. Broad brush strokes and evocative color palettes lend a dimension of the extrasensory to his simple human forms and arrangements, often humming with unspoken tension in their stillness.

Peregrine Press: A Texas Legacy
Flatbed Press & Gallery, through March 8
This homage to Flatbed’s spiritual ancestor — Dallas studio and gallery Peregrine Press, hailed as one of the first fine art presses in the Lone Star State — looks back over the 10 years of editions and monotypes created by its artists in the neon shadow of the 1980s. Even if you lived in 1980s Dallas, chances are you’ve never seen it like this. Also, don't sleep on the Flatbed Contemporary Print Fair 2015, February 13-14.

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Historic Austin museum will close for more than a year for restoration

Photo courtesy of the City of Austin

The Elisabet Ney Museum will close at the end of 2024 and reopen in mid-2026.

Every building needs some maintenance here or there, and the historic Elisabet Ney Museum needs some extra-special care. Formerly the art studio and residence of its namesake, it's been standing since 1892. It'll spend 2025 in relative solitude, as it undergoes renovation for a year and a half with no visitors allowed.

The museum will close to the public December 30, 2024, and open again in the summer of 2026 if all goes according to plan, a news release from the City of Austin shares. It'll be a quiet period compared to the 21,000 people visiting from around the world each year.

According to a museum overview on the city's website, Elisabet Ney, a European portrait sculptor, bought the property and called her new studio Formosa. She worked on sculptures depicting important Texans like Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston, and collected works of European contemporaries.

The building at 304 East 44th St. includes 3,700 square feet of museum space, which was converted by Ney's friends after her death in 1907. It retains its unique look that juxtaposes a Neo-Classical main studio from 1892 with a later addition from 1902 including a tower for her husband, Edmund, to write in. It is also on 2.5 acres of land, which has largely been restored to its natural state with native species.

A press release lists these tasks (verbatim) within the scope of the new work, referred to as the Capital Improvement Project (CIP):

Restoration of original exterior wood doors and windows
Upgrades and replacement of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system
Replacement of the exhibit and general lighting systems
Repairs to the roof, masonry, plumbing, and interior finishes.

There will also be work to do outside of the building. Workers will replace the pedestrian bridge across Waller Creek, stabilize a 20,000-square-foot portion of the bank, and make the grounds more accessible by adding new pathways.

Funding comes from several sources, according to a release: "the 2012 Bond, Proposition 14, the Parkland Dedication Fund, the Historic Preservation Fund, Partners in Preservation through the National Trust, and contributions from the Friends of the Elisabet Ney Museum."

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