Current Exhibits
Exploring the Cosmos by Spacecraft and Paint Brush
Tuesday, November 17, 7:00 – 8:30 pm
In Honor of the International Year of Science 2009 & the 400th Anniversary of
Galileo's Discoveries, the School of Science & the Hearst Gallery present an evening with noted astronomer and exhibition artist William K. Hartmann, Ph.D.
Dr. Hartmann is the senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson and was an investigator on the Mariner 9 Mars probe which mapped the Red Planet in 1972. An asteroid (#3341) is named for him. He has written and illustrated several astronomy textbooks, and also co-authored and co-illustrated five books of space art, including the volume that inspired this exhibition, The Grand Tour. He has recently written his first critically-acclaimed science fiction novel Mars Underground. His paintings are on display in collections throughout the United States, Europe and the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum.
Exhibition open 6:30 – 7:00 pm
On November 17, 2009:
- An evening with William K. Hartmann, Ph.D.- 7:00 – 8:30 pm
- STARGAZING & Leonid Meteor Shower Watch follows, 8:30 pm on Soda Center patio and lawn. (Stargazing subject to weather condition cancellation; call 925.631.4379 or check this website to confirm before Nov. 17.)
Admission Free.
Out of This World: The Landscapes of Our Solar System
Through December 13
Dazzling large-scale digital images of our solar system - planet surfaces & their moons - by the best known space artists of our time; images from Voyager 1 & 2, Mars Rover, Hubble, and Cassini missions; wide-screen Mars Mariner Valley fly-through simulation; interactive computer programs; model of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Rover robot set in a “Marscape,”; NASA history in film, narrated by Harrison Ford, study table.
Exhibition curators: Carrie Brewster, M.F.A., Hearst Art Gallery director, and Ronald P. Olowin, Ph.D., professor of Physics and Astronomy, Saint Mary’s College.
Out of This World: the Landscapes of Our Solar System, is on view at the Hearst Art Gallery, Saint Mary’s College, through December 13.
In the Keith Room -
William Keith: Mountains of Shadow and Light
Thirteen of William Keith's most beautiful mountain landscape oil paintings are on view from May 2 to July 3, 2009, at the Hearst Art Gallery.
Keith’s love of nature was one of several bonds between him and the great naturalist John Muir, whose friendship was pivotal to the artist’s career. They shared a transcendent view of nature, reveling in its beauty, majesty and mystery. They camped together in the Sierra Nevada range and the Northwest, saw each other when Muir was in the San Francisco area, and helped inspire each other's work. Muir directly influenced many of Keith's early Yosemite scenes, encouraged him to reproduce the precise landscape details, and guided him through some of the West’s most beautiful vistas.
As early as 1872, changes in Keith’s style begin to emerge. While remaining faithful to Muir's ideals that art must be a true representation of nature, Keith also became enthusiastic about a more reflective approach to capturing the natural world on canvas. By the late 1870s Keith had established his reputation as a painter of grand panoramic landscapes, often of the High Sierra or other mountain range, on canvas as large as six by ten feet. These paintings both documented a specific locale and paid homage to divine creation, in the impressive form of the American wilderness.
Shortly after they first met at Yosemite, Muir led Keith past Vernal and Nevada Falls to Tuolumne Meadows via the Old Mono Trail and then to the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River. When their group started up the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River, Muir reined his horse aside for the others to get their first view of Mt. Lyell and the crest of the Sierra. Keith wrote, “When we got to Mt. Lyell it was the grandest thing I ever saw. It was late in October. The frost had changed the grasses and a kind of willow to the most brilliant yellows and reds.” Of the same scene, Muir wrote that Keith, his shaggy mane bared, “dashed forward, shouting and gesticulating and waving his arms like a madman.”
Through nearly 40 years of friendship Muir and Keith rejoiced in the spectacular and uplifting natural exuberance of California's grand Sierra Nevada, the Range of Light. Muir, pioneer ecologist, botanist, geologist, glaciologist, one of the founders of the National Parks System and the Sierra Club, taught us the irreplaceable value of wild places. His fortuitous introduction of Keith to the Western vistas captured their majestic beauty on canvas.
*All programming subject to change
The Hearst Art Gallery is accredited by the American Association of Museums
Gallery Hours: Wed. – Sun., 11 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Main Telephone: (925) 631-4379
Website: www.hearstartgallery.org
Media Contact: Heidi Donner, hdonner@stmarys-ca.edu, (925) 631-4069
