The Dishman Art Museum is an art museum on the campus of Lamar University

Lamar University

Lamar University, often referred to as Lamar or LU, is a comprehensive coeducational public research university located in Beaumont, Texas, United States. Lamar confers bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees and is classified as a Doctoral Research University by the Carnegie Commission on Higher...

 in Beaumont

Beaumont, Texas

Beaumont is a city in and county seat of Jefferson County, Texas, United States, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city's population was 118,296 at the 2010 census. With Port Arthur and Orange, it forms the Golden Triangle, a major industrial area on the...

, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

. Admission to the museum is completely free; the gallery is open from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday - Friday. The museum also serves as a teaching facility in the Art Department at Lamar University. Exhibitions change monthly. The gallery features one-person exhibition of contemporary artists, group exhibitions of contemporary artists, Art Department faculty shows, graduating senior shows, a national competition (The Dishman Competition), artist-in-residency, Grand Bal (annual art auction), and High School Scholarship exhibitions. There are three gallery spaces - Upper Gallery, Lower Gallery, and the Heinz and Ruth Eisenstadt Collection which consists of 150 19th-century paintings and 250 porcelins and objets d'art. The exhibition space totals 6000 square feet (557.4 m²).

History

The museum was established in 1983 through a generous gift from local art patrons and philanthropists Herb and Kate Dishman. Architect Marvin Gordy designed the building with Upper and Lower Gallery exhibition spaces, offices and a lecture hall. To realize the grand scope of this building, further financial support was necessary. The Dishmans presented a challenge grant, asking the community to match their donation. Several members of the community met that challenge permitting the completion of the building. In 2003, the building was officially renamed the Dishman Art Museum to reach a larger audience in the Southeast Texas

Southeast Texas

Southeast Texas is a subregion of East Texas located in the southeast corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The subregion is geographically centered around the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown and Beaumont–Port Arthur metropolitan areas...

 community.

Eisenstadt Collection

• Paintings: 147 paintings by European and American artists ranging from the seventeenth through the twentieth century.
• Porcelains: 200 19th- and 20th-century porcelains from Sevres, France, and Meissen and Dresden, Germany.
• Objets d’art: enamel, cloisonne, silver and ivory objects.
• Sculptures: six bronze and one marble 19th-century figurative pieces.
• Furniture: a 15-piece dining room suite and eight curio cabinets.
• Carpets: four modern oriental style carpets.

Robert Willis Print Collection

Bob Willis donated his collection of prints to the Dishman Art Museum in 1995. Willis, who took classes in the Department of Art as a retiree, was an avid collector of the arts. The collection includes 50 prints from European and American artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. All print processes are represented in this collection and many of the works are from the formative years of European abstractionism. Artists include Matisse, Braque, Kandinsky and Miro

Joan Miró

Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...

; styles include naturalism, abstraction

Abstraction

Abstraction is a process by which higher concepts are derived from the usage and classification of literal concepts, first principles, or other methods....

 and non-objectivity.

Tribal Art Collection from Africa, New Guinea and Pre-Columbian Mexico

The Tribal Art Collection was given to the museum the year it opened its doors in 1983. It consists of three private collections given to Lamar by Houston collectors. All three of the collections represent classic examples of tribal art from three regions of the world. Wooden carved shields from New Guinea, ceramic vessels and figures from Mexico and 19th century masks from Africa are the most outstanding pieces in this collection, totaling 45 pieces.

External links

• Dishman Art Museum - official site