Museum Hosts Retrospective by Seattle Painter

A major retrospective exhibition of work by Michael Dailey, a Seattle painter and influential professor emeritus at the University of Washington, opens June 7 and continues through Aug. 31 at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University.

Michael Dailey: Color, Light, Time, and Place was organized by museum Director John Olbrantz and features 20 paintings and 24 works on paper spanning a 45-year period. Works have been selected from public and private collections throughout the region.

Dailey and Olbrantz will discuss the artist’s life and work Friday, June 6, from 5 to 6 p.m. in the Roger Hull Lecture Hall at the museum, followed by a preview reception from 6 to 8 p.m. in the lobby and galleries downstairs. The exhibition will include a full-color, 48-page hardcover monograph, distributed by the University of Washington Press, with an essay by Robin Updike, former art critic for The Seattle Times.

Born and raised in Iowa, Dailey received his bachelor of arts and master of fine arts degrees from the University of Iowa and taught at the University of Washington from 1963 until his retirement in 1998. An abstract painter of tremendous skill and prowess who focuses on landscapes, Dailey has been featured in numerous one-person and group exhibitions during the past five decades.

Dailey’s early landscapes from the 1960s are big, expressionistic compositions of towering mountain peaks, dark forests and chiseled slabs of rock. By the early 1970s, his work became increasingly refined and abstracted as he sought to reduce the landscape to its basic elements of horizon, color, light and atmosphere. “By suggesting rather than defining,” he has written, “much is left for the viewer to imagine.”

His early work is reminiscent of the abstract expressionist painters Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning, but his work of the past 35 years reflects a number of diverse art historical sources: Chinese landscapes; Mark Rothko’s luminous, saturated color; and Piero della Francesca’s glowing light. Color and light are important elements of Dailey’s mature work.

Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the early 1970s, Dailey switched from oil to acrylic and gradually began to reduce the size of his canvases as it became increasingly difficult for him to paint on a large scale. In spite of his physical challenges, he has continued to make lush, sensuous and evocative landscapes that, in his words, “create the mood and presence of the landscape by means of atmospheric color and abstract form.”

The exhibition is supported in part by grants from the City of Salem’s Transient Occupancy Tax funds and the Oregon Arts Commission.

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art is located at 700 State St. (corner of State and Cottage streets) in downtown Salem near the campus of Willamette University. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. The galleries are closed Monday. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for seniors and students. Children younger than 12 are admitted free, and Tuesday is an admission-free day. For more information, call (503) 370-6855 or visit www.willamette.edu/museum_of_art.

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Exhibition Features Photos of Western Wilderness

A small exhibition of color photographs by Adam Bacher, a Portland photographer who captures the remote alpine regions and backcountry wilderness of the western U.S., will be on display May 24–July 27 at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University.

Adam Bacher: Earth, Water, and Sky will showcase an array of subjects photographed by Bacher, including the Oregon and Washington Cascades, the Sierra Nevada of California, the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho, the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming and the rugged terrain of Glacier National Park in Montana.

In conjunction with his exhibition, Bacher will deliver a free lecture about his work Thursday, June 12, at 7 p.m. in the Roger Hull Lecture Hall at the museum. He also will offer a free nature photography workshop for adults Saturday, June 21, from 1–4 p.m. in the Roger Hull Lecture Hall and at Bush’s Pasture Park. Enrollment in the workshop is limited to 15; pre-registration is required by calling (503) 370-6855.

Bacher was born, raised and educated in Michigan and came west to work on a PhD in international relations at the University of Oregon. He enrolled in a photography class at the university for fun, and it literally transformed his life. He abandoned his graduate study, took additional photography classes and has worked as a professional photographer ever since. Bacher has exhibited at the World Forestry Center and the Seges Art Gallery in Portland, and the governor’s office at the Oregon State Capital in Salem.

The exhibition is been supported in part by grants from the City of Salem’s Transient Occupancy Tax funds and the Oregon Arts Commission.

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art is located at 700 State St. (corner of State and Cottage streets) in downtown Salem near the campus of Willamette University. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. The galleries are closed Monday. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for seniors and students. Children younger than 12 are admitted free, and Tuesday is an admission-free day. For more information, call (503) 370-6855 or visit www.willamette.edu/museum_of_art.

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Hallie Ford Museum of Art Announces 2008–09 Exhibitions

A wide variety of exhibitions are planned at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art for 2008–09, Museum Director John Olbrantz announced recently.

Major exhibitions scheduled for the Melvin Henderson-Rubio Gallery include:

Michael Dailey: Color, Light, Time, and Place (June 7–Aug. 31). Michael Dailey is a Seattle abstract painter and professor emeritus from the University of Washington. His work focuses on the deconstruction of the landscape to its basic elements of horizon, color, light and atmosphere. The exhibition features 44 paintings and works on paper, spanning a 45-year period, drawn from public and private collections throughout the region.

The Art of Ceremony: Regalia of Native Oregon (Sept. 28, 2008–Jan. 18, 2009). This exhibition features historic and contemporary regalia from native Oregon, offering visitors a rare glimpse at the beauty, history and meaning of regalia in tribal life and thought. Included are objects made of buckskin and beadwork from the Plateau region of eastern Oregon, objects with condor feathers from the Columbia River Gorge, and objects with feather and abalone shell decoration from the Oregon Coast. The exhibition was chosen as Oregon’s 2008 American Masterpieces project and was awarded $50,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Harry Widman: Image, Myth, and Modernism (Jan. 31–March 29, 2009). Harry Widman is a Portland painter and professor emeritus from the Pacific Northwest College of Art. The exhibition surveys his career over a 60-year period in works that explore the possibility of a “meaningful shape” in abstract painting, the role myth can play in contemporary expression, and the interplay between the physical strength of the athlete and the intellectual delicacy of the poet or philosopher in expressionist modern art.

Senior Art Majors (April 11–May 17, 2009). Each spring, the Hallie Ford Museum of Art features the work of senior art and art history majors at Willamette. The exhibition includes work in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, ceramics, photography and mixed media. In addition, the exhibition features senior theses in art history.

James Thompson: The Vanishing Landscape (April 11–May 17, 2009). This exhibition focuses on a body of work that the artist has been developing for some time exploring the transformation of the rural western U.S. Thompson holds an MFA degree from Washington University in St. Louis and has been on the art faculty at Willamette University since 1986.

Smaller exhibitions scheduled for the Study Gallery include Adam Bacher: Earth, Water, and Sky (May 24–July 27); The Collector’s Eye: Contemporary Art from the Leo Michelson Collection (Aug. 2–Oct. 5); The Second Crow’s Shadow Institute for the Arts Biennial (Oct. 11–Dec. 21); Mary Randlett: Artist Portraits (Jan. 10–March 8, 2009); and From Hestia’s Sacred Fire to Christ’s Eternal Light: Ancient and Medieval Lamps from the Bogue Collection (March 14–May 17, 2009).

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art is located at 700 State St. (corner of State and Cottage streets) in downtown Salem near the campus of Willamette University. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. The galleries are closed on Monday. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for seniors and students. Children younger than 12 are admitted free, and Tuesday is an admission-free day. For more information, call (503) 370-6855 or visit www.willamette.edu/museum_of_art.

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