Past Exhibitions

A Cell of One's Own: John Frost
September 26th – January 24th 2010
The fourth in the contemporary artist series, "A Cell of One's Own," John Frost brings a new and exciting approach to the 1877 upper gallery spaces. A Hardin Simmons University and Texas Christian University Alumnus, Frost works in varying media to create a unique experience for the viewer.
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6° of Separation: Selections from the Permanent Collection
September 26th – January 24th 2010
The theory known as "six degrees of separation" proposes that anyone on the planet can be connected, by a chain of acquaintances, to any other individual by no more than six intermediaries. The theory and phrase, though first proposed in 1929 by the Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy in a short story called "Chains" and proven to be feasible mathematically, was made popular in the 1990s by a play and film adaptation by playwright John Guare. The theory has morphed into a popular trivia game called "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" in which players attempt to connect any film actor in history with Kevin Bacon through film roles. This exhibition, Six Degrees of Separation, attempts to connect works within the collection through collector/artist friendships, art movements, or some sort of aesthetic.
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West Texas Triangle: Surls
June 20th – August 21st 2009
The Old Jail Art Center is pleased to join with its partners in the West Texas Triangle Consortium of Art Museums to present a region-wide exhibition of the work of James Surls this summer.
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A Cell of One's Own: Randy Bacon
June 6th – September 13th 2009
Abilene native Randy Bacon's landscape paintings capture cinematic moments of quintessentially southwestern American spaces. Many of the works to be exhibited in the historic jail cell galleries depict places near Albany. Bacon terms his landscape work "the language of longing, space, and place." Opening at Western Swing, June 6.
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Going to Texas: Five Centuries of Texas Maps
June 6th – September 13th 2009
Maps of the Lone Star State dating from 1548 to 2006 will intrigue visitors this summer. The maps are selections from the Yana and Marty Davis Collection, which was donated to the Museum of the Big Bend at Sul Ross State University in Alpine in 2006. The Center for Texas Studies at Texas Christian University is circulating the exhibition. Opening at Western Swing, June 6.
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The Edward R. Broida Bequest, Gift of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston
February 28th – May 31st 2009
Edward R. Broida, a Los Angeles real estate developer who was trained as an architect, was born in Cleveland, where his father was an architect. After practicing in his father's office, he moved to Los Angeles in 1962 to become a developer. At the age of 40, Ed Broida retired and began collecting contemporary art. Over the next quarter century, he refined his collection by looking at newly created art throughout the country. He relied on his own eye and instincts to amass a collection of more than 700 works that spans late-20th-century trends in painting and sculpture.
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A Cell of One's Own: Jeffrey Brosk
February 28th – May 23rd 2009
In 1928-29, British author Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) made the case that in order to write, it was necessary to have a room of one's own. The Old Jail Art Center is turning over its historic jail cells to contemporary artists in this new series, A Cell of One's Own. Sculptor Jeffrey Brosk (b.1947) lives and works in New York City in a studio in the heart of SoHo. With a Master of Architecture degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brosk practiced architecture before turning to sculpture full-time. He has exhibited widely in the U.S. and abroad, and his work appears in numerous public and private collections throughout the country.
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