{"id":579953,"date":"2026-08-10T01:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T01:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/579953\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T01:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T01:28:10","slug":"amsets-a-legacy-of-collecting-exhibit-opens-today-in-beaumont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/579953\/","title":{"rendered":"AMSET&#8217;s &#8216;A Legacy of Collecting&#8217; exhibit opens today in Beaumont"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AMSET opens &#8220;A Legacy of Collecting,&#8221; featuring 65 works spanning 39 years, running today through Sept. 20 in Beaumont.<\/p>\n<p>BEAUMONT, Texas \u2014 The Art Museum of Southeast Texas will open &#8220;A Legacy of Collecting,&#8221; an exhibition featuring 65 artworks from the museum&#8217;s permanent collection spanning 39 years, Saturday, Aug. 9, running through Sept. 20 at 500 Main St. in Beaumont.<\/p>\n<p>The show, curated by Caitlin Clay and organized chronologically, completes the story of AMSET&#8217;s 75th-anniversary celebration, following a previous exhibition that focused on the first half of the museum&#8217;s history, according to the museum. Clay said the museum intentionally analyzes mentor-prot\u00e9g\u00e9 relationships when acquiring new works to map connections between educators and students.<\/p>\n<p>                                            &#13;<br \/>\n                                                <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.12newsnow.com\/assets\/shared-images\/icons\/arrow-circle-down.svg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                                            &#13;<br \/>\n                                                This story continues below.&#13;<\/p>\n<p>        &#13;<\/p>\n<p role=\"heading\" class=\"article-recirculation__title\">&#13;<br \/>\n                    More in Local&#13;\n                <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n                    &#13;<br \/>\n                        <a class=\"article-recirculation__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.12newsnow.com\/article\/news\/local\/beaumont-photographers-debut-exhibition-celebrates-vintage-car-culture-art-museum-of-southeast-texas\/502-9ae664aa-2d85-4a92-97c2-54fe346f8b64\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                                    <img   alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n                                &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n                                &#13;<br \/>\n                                    Beaumont photographer&#8217;s debut exhibition celebrates vintage car culture at Art Museum of Southeast Texas&#13;<br \/>\n                                &#13;\n                            <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n                        <\/a>&#13;<br \/>\n                    &#13;<\/p>\n<p>The opening room includes a short video about the museum and works from the early days of its current, purpose-built facility, which opened in 1987 after the museum previously operated out of a residential building in Beaumont&#8217;s old town, according to the museum. The exhibition includes a piece by local ceramic artist Greg Busceme, founder of Beaumont&#8217;s Art Studio, Inc., from his first solo museum show, and a painting by Dixie Gay Friend from a solo show that once featured a live python cared for by former director Lynn Castle.<\/p>\n<p>AMSET achieved accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums in 1989, a milestone the museum says was impossible to reach at its former location. Of roughly 3,000 accredited museums nationwide, only 33 are in Texas, with the McFaddin-Ward House the only other accredited museum in Beaumont, according to the museum. By 1990, the museum had more members than Houston&#8217;s Contemporary Art Museum,<\/p>\n<p>The 1990s section highlights the museum&#8217;s American Folk Art collection, sparked by a donation from collectors Warren and Sylvia Lowe and represented in the show by Alice Stallings&#8217; painting &#8220;Large-Middle Size Herd.&#8221; The decade also saw AMSET become one of the first Texas museums to host a solo exhibition by glass artist Dale Chihuly, represented in the show by a piece from his Macchia series. The section also includes a Haitian voodoo flag that the museum says is the only artwork in its history to be actively protested, after visitors brought Bibles into the museum in opposition; the museum did not withdraw the piece from display.<\/p>\n<p>The 2000s section, tied to the museum&#8217;s 2007 installation of the Felix Fox Harris Gallery and its 2008 reaccreditation, includes James Surls&#8217; sculpture &#8220;Standing Water Flowers&#8221; paired with a flower painting by Lamar University professor Jerry Newman, who taught Southeast Texas artists John Alexander and Paul Manes. The section also features David Bates&#8217; &#8220;Forsythia,&#8221; built from painted wood blocks, and Sharon Kopriva&#8217;s mixed-media sculpture &#8220;Mother Teresa,&#8221; a satirical response to her religious upbringing; Castle was once stopped by police while transporting Kopriva&#8217;s sculptures for her original exhibition, according to the museum. The section also includes Howard Sherman&#8217;s &#8220;The Power of an Enduring Conversation,&#8221; created when the artist was two years out of graduate school for his first solo museum show.<\/p>\n<p>The exhibition&#8217;s final section covers the past decade, including a rideable see-saw created by artist Tom Jean Webb for his 2025 solo exhibition, and reflects the museum&#8217;s shift since 1987 toward Texas fine artists or those inspired by time spent in the state, including a donation of more than 460 Mexican folk art objects from collector John Gaston Fairey in the 2010s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AMSET opens &#8220;A Legacy of Collecting,&#8221; featuring 65 works spanning 39 years, running today through Sept. 20 in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[437,434,435,436,438,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-579953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}