Crafting A Legacy: 40 Years of Collecting & Exhibiting at the Metal Museum

Crafting A Legacy: 40 Years of Collecting & Exhibiting at the Metal Museum

The Metal Museum is pleased to announce Crafting A Legacy: 40 Years of Collecting & Exhibiting at the Metal Museum, an exhibition showcasing work from the Metal Museum’s past, current, and future Master Metalsmiths and Tributaries artists.

Crafting A Legacy: 40 Years of Collecting & Exhibiting at the Metal Museum, will open on Sunday, February 3 and runs through Sunday, May 12, 2019. The Museum will host an Opening Reception & Gallery Talk with the curator and selected artists on Sunday, February 3, 2018 at 3PM with the Gallery Talk beginning at 4PM.

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of the only institution in the United States devoted exclusively to the preservation and advancement of the art and craft of fine metalwork, the Metal Museum is curating an exhibition of the Master Metalsmith and Tributaries Collections, supplemented with loans from artists currently underrepresented in the Permanent Collection.

The Master Metalsmith exhibition series began in 1983 as a way for the Metal Museum to honor the most influential metal artists of the day. In the years since its inception, it has brought the work of more than 30 internationally acclaimed metalsmiths to Memphis for solo exhibitions. Inspired by this series, one of the most important collections in the Metal Museum’s Permanent Collection of art objects is the Master Metalsmith Collection. It represents 32 of the 36 Master Metalsmiths and includes over 80 original works of jewelry, hollowware, sculpture and architectural objects.

The Tributaries exhibition series began in 2007 with the goal of supporting underrepresented and under-recognized metal artists with solo exhibitions at the Museum. Along with the exhibition, Tributaries artists travel to the Museum to present a gallery talk or slide lecture and some artists elect to teach workshops in the Museum’s smithy, foundry or small metals studio. With over 35 Tributaries exhibitions completed or in the planning process, the Museum has celebrated some of the most talented artists who are shaping the metals field today. The Metal Museum actively collects the work of these artists to document the early and evolving stages of their careers.

This exhibition will feature 36 Master Metalsmith and 30 Tributaries artists with each artist represented by 1 piece (or set of pieces) for a total count of 78 objects. These artists represent both the heights of achievement and the promising future of the metals field, and they work with a variety of metals, processes and forms, including jewelry, furniture, sculpture, hollowware, hardware, tools, and architectural ironwork. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog with interviews from Founding Director James Wallace and current Executive Director Carissa Hussong, an introduction essay, artist biographies, and visual documentation of these unique and important works.

List of Master Metalsmiths:

Phillip Fike, L. Brent Kington, Richard Mawdsley, Gary Noffke, Helen Shirk, Carl Jennings, John Marshall, Curtis Lafollete, Mary Lee Hu, Bruce LePage, Tom Joyce, Heikki Seppä, Pat Flynn, Marilyn da Silva, Richard Kimball, Tim McCreight, Harlan Butt, Peter Ross, Harriete Estel Berman, Elliott Pujol, Richard Prillaman, Thomas Madden, Gary Griffin, Elizabeth Brim, Michael Jerry, Fred Fenster, Eleanor Moty , Thomas Latane, Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Linda Threadgill, Hoss Haley, David Secrest, Lisa Gralnick, Sarah Perkins, Kim Cridler, Rachelle Thiewes

List of Tributaries Artists:

John Rais, David Clemons, Jeffrey Clancy, Haley Bates, Sylvie Rosenthal, Nathan Dube, Jillian Moore, Jessica Calderwood, Susan Myers, Andy Cooperman, Marc Maiorana, Stacey Lee Webber, Lola Brooks, Marlene True, Lauren Kahlman, Chris Irick, Andrew Hayes, Karin Jones, Gabriel Craig, Susie Ganch, Kirk Lang, Vivian Beer, Seth Gould, Stephen Yusko, Cozette Phillips, Caitie Sellers, Zachery Lechtenberg, Venetia Dale, Tanya Crane, Jill Baker Gower