SAN ANTONIO – With an exhibition aptly titled “Hidden Gems,” the San Antonio Art League + Museum unveiled unseen art pieces collected over the past century.
Tucked away in a two-story home at 130 King William St., the museum itself is a hidden gem within the city’s long-standing art scene.
Founded in 1912, the nonprofit aims to promote the knowledge and interest of local art through exhibitions, classes and its free public art gallery.
“This is a cultural history that I don’t think any other museum has quite like ours,” the league’s president Lyn Kurtin said. “It’s so San Antonio centric and so personal to what makes our city multicultural and great.”
The current exhibition pulls select paintings and sculptures from the museum’s permanent collection, which includes more than 600 artworks.
According to the league’s website, the exhibition unveils “masterpieces, controversial works and strange stories” that help trace the evolving story of Texas art — a story characterized by contradictions and the social conditions of the time of their creation.
Kurtin said context is key in understanding the artworks’ place in this exhibition and value in modern times.
She pointed to a painting of a young boy that hung on the wall of the museum. Sitting on an outdoor chair, the boy reads a book while a dog lays at his feet.
Kurtin wants attendees to engage with art and take a closer look at the work.
“What does it tell us about the child and the way the child lives?” she asked.
Elements of the painting — from the boy’s clothing to the setting he sits at — draw attention to his affluence and social status. Kurtin asks that viewers consider individual readings of artworks and compare those thoughts to the paintings they share the room with.
“Art has always had a message,” she said. “We’ve managed to say our message over the past 150 years, in subtle ways and in overt ways, and looking at an art collection like this, which is I’ve said, like a snapshot or like a time capsule.”
Curator Vikki Fields played a vital role in crafting this time capsule, including works by San Antonio-born early 20th century impressionists to lesser-known pieces created by local professors and art students from past decades.
“I’ve been around here for a while, and I am familiar with the collection to a large degree,” Fields said. “I like to see things done really well. Craft-wise, creative-wise, and so basically my overwhelming thing to choose for this exhibition, other than things that might have not been seen for a while, was the excellence in art, in presentation.”
Both women expressed that one of the joys in art is the close relationship between a viewer and an art piece.
“There’s nothing better than being able to speak one-on-one with a piece of art,” Fields said.
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