The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats is the first major exhibition in the U.S. to pay tribute to award-winning author and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats (1916–1983), whose beloved children’s books include Whistle for Willie, Peter’s Chair, and The Snowy Day, published in 1962. The exhibition features over 80 original works by the artist, from preliminary sketches to final paintings and collages, including examples of Keats’s most introspective but less-known output inspired by Asian art and poetry.
More info...This exhibition presents a dramatic inside look at 1960s biker counterculture. From 1963 – 1967 Danny Lyon not only captured the bikers in photographs, but immersed himself in the lifestyle. Lyon joined the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club, making him a pioneer of the new form of photojournalism where the artist was personally involved with the subject.
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The first art that most children experience is in picture books, and the first reading they do involves reading pictures instead of words. Therefore it’s no surprise that Akron’s school age population can identify an image of Peter, the protagonist of Ezra Jack Keats’s The Snowy Day, plodding through a fresh coating of snow in his bright red snow suit. Draw Me a Story celebrates Keats’s legacy and the power of picture books to promote visual literacy and cultural awareness
Line Color Illusion: 40 Years of Julian Stanczak showcases paintings and prints collected by the Akron Art Museum since 1970. The exhibition documents both Julian Stanczak’s impressive career as a master of color and the museum’s longstanding commitment to his work.
More info...Featuring more than 60 paintings, drawings, prints and photographs dating from 1930 to 1955 Real/Surreal examines how American artists used strikingly naturalistic details to imaginative images inspired by dreams and how they introduced disconcerting undertones into compositions that featured seemingly ordinary scenes. The exhibition features works by both well-known artists, such as Charles Burchfield, Edward Hopper, Charles Sheeler and Grant Wood alongside engaging images by lesser-known talents, among them Francis Criss, Louis Gugliemi and Katherine Schmidt.
More info...With a Trace: Photographs of Absence features photographers spanning several generations who have not just captured a scene but created a moment in time. Their images bear traces of human presence, the transmission of energy, atmospheric phenomena and experiments with light. Among the artists, Christopher Bucklow, Sophie Calle, Margaret De Patta, Adam Fuss, Alison Rossiter, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Daido Moriyama use a wide range of processes to render their enigmatic subjects.
More info...Kent State University graduate Diana Al-Hadid’s monumental sculpture Nolli’s Orders intermingles landscape, architecture and the human figure. Hovering between architectural ruin and figurative sculpture, the thirteen-foot high sculpture is constructed of steel, polymer gypsum, fiberglass, wood, foam and paint.
More info...Multiplicity showcases more than 80 prints by modern and contemporary American artists working in an exciting variety of media. Drawn from the outstanding collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the exhibition demonstrates how artists today engage with the unique qualities of printmaking processes.
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