First Friday at the Great Plains Art Museum

Date and Time for this Past Event

• Friday, Jul 2, 2021  5pm - 7pm

Location

Category

Arts

Details

"Agrarian Spirit in the Homestead Era: Artwork from the Moseman Collection of Agrarian Art" is on exhibit from July 2 to Oct. 23, with an opening reception on First Friday, July 2, from 5 to 7 p.m. The opening reception is free and open to the public.

Nebraskans Mark and Carol Moseman have collected more than 200 works of art representing an eclectic array of styles and renowned artists from America and Europe, with one thread that weaves them together: humankind’s relationship to the land.

Now considered a collection of significant artistic and historic value, the works fall under the genre of Agrarian Art, a term coined by Mark Moseman, a well-respected agrarian artist himself, and is now a term recognized by the Smithsonian Institution.

Over the years, the Mosemans donated art from their collection to various museums and are now giving the remainder to the Great Plains Art Museum, which is housed at the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Mark Moseman curated the exhibition of 61 works. It includes paintings, sculptures and prints revealing a dramatic change in culture in the Great Plains, from European American settlement and homesteading in the 1860s to an exodus from the land beginning in the 1930s.

The exhibition features works by artists such as Jean-François Millet, Eastman Johnson, Winslow Homer, Georges Laugée, Thérèse-Marthe-Françoise Dupré, John Gutzon Borglum, Harvey Dunn, Diego Rivera and Robert Gwathmey. Artwork by John Steuart Curry and Georges Schreiber show uncertainty near the end of the Homestead era and the twilight of this brief but transformative time in American history.

The Mosemans have also established a fund through the University of Nebraska Foundation for the Great Plains Art Museum. The endowment will ensure their collection is preserved and help to make it accessible to the public.

Also on view:

"Woman As...Exploring Gender and Representation in the Permanent Collection"
Lower-level gallery