Teachers as Artists is an annual juried exhibition in the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust Education Center showcasing the talents of WAEA members who are current or retired arts educators. This year we invited art teachers to submit works in any genre that explore identity. Presented in partnership with Washington Art Education Association. Juror: Karen Giles, Lifelong Museum Educator and retired Manager of Adult and Community Programs at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Mélange includes an array of more than 40 prints, drawings and watercolors drawn from Maryhill’s collection. Included are works by noted Northwest artists such as Rick Bartow, Betty LaDuke, Richard Thompson and Henk Pander. Also featured are a lithograph by Thomas Hart Benton, and several prints by the French artist Marcel Augis, who trod World War I battlefields to depict the everyday lives of Allied troops. The subject matter of the works on view ranges from landscapes and nature studies to interiors, portraits, still life and abstract works.

Still life prints and paintings from Maryhill’s permanent collection, including work by Robert Douglas Hunter, Richard Lack, Henk Bos, Jakob Bogdani, Katja Oxman, and Oregon artists John Van Dreal and Robert Bibler. The exhibition includes a sumptuous painting of poppies and fruit by British artist Annie Feray Mutrie, considered one of the foremost flower painters of the Victorian era.

Image: Henrik “Henk” Bos (Dutch, 1901–1979), Eggs in Bowl and Blue Jar, c. 1960, oil on canvas, 14” x 16”; Collection of Maryhill Museum of Art

The 19th-century French artist Théodore Rivière (1857–1912) is best known for his small-scale sculptures with Orientalist themes. His works also frequently show Art Nouveau influences. On view are more than a dozen figurative sculptures in bronze, marble and terra cotta.

Created as a means to re-build France’s fashion industry after the devastation of World War II, this exhibition shows one-third human size mannequins wearing fashions created by the country’s finest designers. When it debuted at Louvre’s Museum of Decorative Arts in 1945, the opening drew 100,000 visitors. After touring Europe and the US in 1946, the exhibition languished in the basement of San Francisco’s City of Paris department store; the sets were destroyed, but the mannequins were saved by Alma de Bretteville Spreckels who championed their acquisition by Maryhill Museum of Art. Maryhill is now home to nine re-built sets and restored mannequins.

During 2019, three Théâtre de la Mode sets will leave storage and rotate onto view: André Beaurepaire’s “La Grotto Enchantée” (The Enchanted Grotto); Jean-Denis Malclès’ “Le Jardin Marveilleux” (The Marvelous Garden); and André Dignimont’s “Palais Royale.”

The sets feature garments and accessories by such celebrated designers as Worth, Jean Patou, Balenciaga, Nina Ricci, Mad Carpentier, Lanvin, Schiaparelli, Hermès, Pierre Balmain, and Grès, among others.

Image: Detail from Théâtre de la Mode: “La Grotto Enchantée” (The Enchanted Grotto), original 1946 fashions and mannequins from set by André Beaurepaire (recreated by Anne Surgers); Collection of Maryhill Museum of Art
Exhibitions in the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust Education Center

Exhibitions presented in the museum’s M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust Education Center further the museum’s educational mission and feature collaborative exhibitions with regional arts educators, academies and art groups.