October 19, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Sarah Boehme, Director
409.886.ARTS (2787)
sboehme@starkmuseum.org
Stark Museum Opens The Book of Hours Exhibit
ORANGE, Texas, October 18, 2010 – The Stark Museum of Art will open its new special display The Book of Hours: A Highlight Exhibit on Saturday, October 23. The exhibit features four late medieval illuminated manuscripts with glorious hand-painted illustrations, all from the permanent collection of the Museum. The exhibit will be on view through January 8, 2011.
Each manuscript is a Book of Hours, a prayer book for laypersons, and each one is unique through the illustrations that accompany the text. French, Dutch, and Flemish artists painted the illustrations in the four books, which date from the fifteenth to the early sixteenth centuries.
“An exhibition featuring our beautiful illuminated manuscripts has become a tradition for the Stark Museum of Art, especially around the holiday season. Each year we open the books to illustrations that have not been previously displayed, and we invite the public to enjoy these treasures of art. This year the illustrations each include animal imagery, from the ox and donkey in a classic Christmas Nativity scene to exotic monkeys in border illustrations,” said Sarah Boehme, Director.
The Museum store will have a special collector’s Christmas ornament and holiday cards featuring the exhibit’s signature image.
The Stark Museum of Art will have programming in conjunction with the exhibit. A round-table book discussion on The Medici Giraffe: And Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power will take place Saturday, November 6 at 3 p.m. The Museum will have special evening hours for viewing the exhibit during a Holiday Exhibit Celebration on two evenings, Tuesday, December 14, and Thursday, December 16, from 5 to 8 p.m.
Located at 712 Green Avenue in Orange, Texas, the Stark Museum of Art is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Admission is free. The Museum is closed Christmas Eve Day, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Group tours are available by appointment. For more information call 409.886.ARTS (2787) or visit
www.starkmuseum.org.
The Master of Bedford Trend
Nativity
Book of Hours, Use of Paris
c. 1410-1415
paint, gold and ink on vellum
6 7/8 x 4 7/8 inches
Stark Museum of Art
Orange, Texas 11.99.1
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, Charles Marion Russell, and Georgia O’Keeffe.
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.
The Stark Museum of Art is a program of the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation, a private operating foundation, whose other programs include the Frances Ann Lutcher Theater for the Performing Arts, Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center, and The W.H. Stark House.