Ralph Chessé experimented with a variety of styles from cubism to expressionism throughout his career, and the form of his work ranged from murals to puppetry, though painting took precedence. Much of his work prior to 1956 addresses African American themes or concerns, including his boyhood in New Orleans. In his retirement, he relocated to… Read more
Category: Learn
In the self-portrait Double Vision (Record), artist Jonathan Calm assumes the position of past and present-day landscape photographers—standing under a dark cloth, using a large-format view camera. He poses in the act of creating an image of the California coastline, a site long favored by revered “masters” of photography like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.… Read more
Both visual art and creative writing can invite us into abstract thoughts, a chance to step away from the traditional narrative and into a different way of thinking, seeing, speaking. We invite you to spend some time in the abstract today, using this piece by Northwest painter Neil Meitzler as inspiration. “While our existence momentarily… Read more
Portland Art Museum’s Director of Learning & Community Partnerships, Stephanie Parrish, is joined by her counterpart at the Denver Art Museum, Heather Nielsen, to discuss the ins and outs of museum learning and how they’ve had to shift all that they do in response to a world where in-person programming is on hold. This episode is part… Read more
Many of us have likely gotten to know the streets we live on a bit better this year as we take walks in the neighborhood or spend time looking out our windows while we try to stay close to home and maintain social distancing. Or maybe life has shifted in a way that means our… Read more
January 22–February 8 Buy and browse online at westcoastprintfair.com By Mary Weaver Chapin, Curator of Prints and Drawings As with so many things this past year, the Portland Fine Print Fair (PFPF) is pivoting online. I am thrilled that we’re able to play a part in keeping this event going. For me, the Museum, and… Read more
Something about the diagrammatic silhouettes and obscured labels in Larry Rivers’s An Outline of History hit differently when I came across it in PAM’s Online Collections today. The shapes and composition are so familiar that I instantly recognized the moment in American history. Yet I still imagined a multitude of alternative narratives filling the negative… Read more
Approaching this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I am called to gather my thoughts more intentionally on what this day offers us in this particular moment in time. As one of the few Black stories acknowledged in US history books throughout childhood, the work of Dr. King cements him as a fixture in political… Read more
At two inches by two inches in diameter, this piece by Mary Adams (Mohawk, Canadian) feels quintessentially “small but mighty” and so full of intricate beauty. In these fraught days, we invite you to spend some time writing in this spirit of “small but mighty,” knowing that each of us has a mighty role to… Read more
Back in November, we closed the national tour of the PAM-organized exhibition, Hank Willis Thomas: All Things Being Equal… The works in the exhibition stick with me and I continue to be moved by Thomas’s art that tells us so much about the history and the present in our country. Throughout the last year, I’ve… Read more