November 13, 2008
ORANGE, Texas, November 13, 2008 – The Stark Museum of Art will sponsor a presentation by art historian Dr. Judith Steinhoff, “Medieval Books and Their Readers” on November 20, 2008, at 6:30 pm at the Lutcher Theater, 707 Main Street. This presentation is in conjunction with the Stark Museum of Art’s special exhibition Pictured Prayers: Medieval Books of Hours. Steinhoff’s talk is free and open to the public. A reception, book signing and exhibition viewing at the Stark Museum of Art, 712 Green Avenue, will follow the presentation.
“The annual holiday exhibition of Books of Hours is a popular event. This talk is an opportunity to learn more about these manuscripts and their beautiful illustrations,” said Sue Harris, Education Coordinator. She explained that Steinhoff will begin with the process of making medieval manuscripts and then look at the Book of Hours, as well as other types of medieval books and the audiences that read and used them.
Judith Steinhoff is associate professor of art history at the School of Art of the University of Houston. She is a noted authority on medieval art with numerous publications. Recently she contributed an essay on a Book of Hours to the publication, Between the Picture and the Word. She served as curator for an exhibition on medieval manuscripts at the Anderson Library, University of Houston.
The Stark Museum of Art's Pictured Prayers exhibition features seven beautifully hand-painted Books of Hours, which are prayer books used by non-clergy for daily devotions in the middle ages. Artists decorated the pages of the handwritten books with lavish illustrations to guide the reader. The Stark collection contains beautiful manuscripts from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries by French, Flemish, and Dutch artists.
The Museum Store will sell holiday cards and a special collectors’ ornament featuring the signature image from the exhibition. The ornament is the second of a series of ornaments produced annually for the Stark Museum of Art.
Located at 712 Green Avenue in Orange, Texas, the Stark Museum of Art is open to the public at no charge Tuesday through Saturday. Hours are from 10 AM – 5 PM. Group tours are available by appointment. For more information call 409.886.ARTS (2787) or visit www.starkmuseum.org.
About the Stark Museum of Art
The Stark Museum of Art focuses on the stunning land, the dramatic people and the diverse wildlife of the American West. Paintings, sculpture and prints interpret the West from nineteenth century frontier artists to the twentieth century artistic colonies in New Mexico. Artists include John James Audubon, Frederic Remington, and Charles Marion Russell.
The Museum also features a significant collection of American Indian objects, including baskets, pottery, clothing and weavings. Other permanent collections in the Museum include the complete porcelain American Bird Series by Dorothy Doughty and the only complete series of The United States in Crystal, a collection of crystal urns produced by Steuben Glass to depict the 50 states and the Union.
Dr. Judith Steinhoff
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