Alan Bean Exhibition at the Butler Institute of American Art
Alan Bean opened his new art exhibit at the Butler Art Institute on Friday night, October 14, 2005 in Youngstown, Ohio with a gala party for invited guests and members of the museum. The show is a retrospective sampling of Captain Bean’s paintings from 1982 to the present day and reflects the changes he has made in his style and color palette over the past twenty-three years.
My wife and I decided to make a weekend of it and flew to Ohio on Friday. The weather in New England attempted to conspire to delay us in getting to the event, but we made it just in the nick of time.
As we arrived at the Butler Art Institute we were greeted with immense banners proclaiming Alan’s exhibit. I told Patti to stop the car, so I could snap a picture of the front of the building.
Once the car was parked, we walked into the museum and entered the main hall. Alan was there greeting guests in the front of a room filled with his paintings. The museum had surrounded the entire hall with Alan’s paintings. Some of his most famous works like “The Fantasy,” “ In Flight” and the “The Hammer and The Feather” were hanging near it each other as well as other more recent pieces.
As we were walking around the room, my wife and I met fellow collector, Roy Gutzke. As the three of us were talking about Alan’s work, Mark Gray of Spacecraft Films happened by with his video camera. Soon the four of us were walking around the hall looking at Alan’s work. We saw Alan talking with people at the end of the hall and introduced ourselves. We congratulated Alan on his show. Alan was in great form and we talked for a few minutes, but there were a lot of people there and he took the time to talk with everyone.
Before long dinner was served. After dinner, Dr. Zona, the museum curator, spoke of Alan, his work and his contribution to the art world. Then Alan got and delivered a wonderful talk about his trip to the Moon, his decision to take up painting and the about the people who encouraged him to paint as well as to work as an artist.
There was more time to wander around and look at his work. Slowly the crowd thinned out and I was able to look at the paintings more closely. At about that time, Alan came up and we talked about his work being in such a wonderful museum. We were looking at two of his works that flanked both sides of an open door. Through the door we could see a work by 19th century American Impressionist portrait painter, John Singer Sargent. Alan remarked that it amazed him to see his work next to such a famous artist. I asked him to stand in the doorway and I took a picture of him with all three works.
There was a small after party upstairs in a private room. Alan had invited some of the guests up for a nightcap. There Alan spent more time with us and we got the chance to talk him.
The party broke up around 11PM, but the associate director, Kathy Urnhart, took our little group on a private tour of some of the rooms in the rest of museum. There we saw wonderful examples of works by such great American artists as Winslow Homer and Albert Beirstadt. The Butler Institute of Art is a hidden gem of American art with works by many of the major artists of the country. It was a wonderful venue for Alan’s works.
On the way out, the museum gave each one of it’s guests an Alan Bean signed poster of the museum show. It was a nice ending to a great evening with an artist that walked upon the Moon.
