Selected landscape photographs from a recent bequest to the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art will be on display starting 11 a.m. Jan. 26. The museum is on the State Fair Community College Sedalia campus. The exhibit will close on May 26. Admission is free.
The Hill Becomes the Valley – American Landscape Photography from a collection by the late P. John Owen, a native Sedalian, features 69 photographs by 25 photographers. The total bequest contains 132 photographs by 45 photographers. The images primarily portray the inspirational beauty of the American West and Southwest in the spirit championed by the influential photographer Ansel Adams. The collection contains two prints by Adams, including his well-known Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite of 1960.
Other important artists featured are Paul Strand, Imogen Cunningham, Brett Weston, and Eliot Porter. Subjects range from remarkable views of the Grand Canyon and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Canyon de Chelly. Other prints focus on less identifiable, but no less powerful, studies of flora and fauna, approaching storms and rippling sand dunes that celebrate the drama and splendor of America’s natural environments. Most of the photographs in the current exhibition are from the 1970s and 1980s, with a few exceptions.
Owen left the collection to the Daum in memory of his parents P. Cecil and Marceille F. Owen, also Sedalia natives.
At 6 p.m. March 28, Keith Davis, Senior Curator of Photography at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, will present a related lecture in the Stauffacher Theatre. The public is invited; admission is free.
This exhibit is presented at the Daum with funding from Mrs. Katherine A. Menefee, season underwriter; Barbara Schrader, season underwriter; Mr. and Mrs. James O. Cooney, exhibition sponsors; Randy and Marsha Eaton, exhibition sponsors; Steve Ellebracht, exhibition sponsor; Joe Fischer and Gloria Angel, exhibition sponsors; Sylvia Y. Hopkins, exhibition sponsor; and James and Martha Meyer, exhibition sponsors. All programs are supported by State Fair Community College and the members of Daum Museum of Contemporary Art.
Museum hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free. For more information, call (660) 530-5888 or visit www.daummuseum.org.
