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Featured Photographs from the Artists in the AMSET Permanent Collection include Keith Carter, Ray Carrington III, Dornith Doherty, Ann Stautberg, Fannie Tapper, and more. The Art Museum of Southeast Texas (AMSET) has acquired works of art for its permanent collection since 1950. In those early days as the Beaumont Art Museum, new additions came from purchases from the annual members show and from gifts of generous donors. Just as each member had their own diverse taste in art, so did the collection, resulting in an assorted group of styles. As AMSET has matured, so has the focus of its collecting. For the better part of the last two decades, AMSET director, curators and the Acquisitions Committee, an ongoing assembly made up of AMSET board members and other community members have continuously worked to assemble a cohesive but integrated body of artwork by drafting a Collections Plan. The areas of concentration have evolved to include modern and contemporary American art with a focus on the Texas region, including painting, prints, photography, and sculpture, as well as contemporary folk art and a core collection of earlier 19th and 20th century works that can provide context in which to view later work. The collection includes almost fifty photographic works, and Curatorial selections are on exhibit in the West Hallway in conjunction with FotoFest. |
“I’m deeply honored that this piece—and Alejandro’s mask—will live together in a permanent museum collection. This image represents lineage, place, and the shared human language of art that transcends borders.”
As a South East Texan native (Livingston), I’m very honored to announce that the @amsetx Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont will be adding a @gregdavisphotography piece to their permanent collection entitled “El Orgullo (pride) de Juxtlahuaca”. Juxtlahuace is a small village in the indigenous Mixtec region of NW Oaxaca, Mexico. Along with the image, the museum will be adding a hand carved diablo mask from Master Folk artist, @alejandroveraguz Alejandro VERA Guzman. Alejandro carved all of the masks you see in the image.
What makes this so special is that Alejandro’s daughter, @blancaverac is the one dancing in the front of the photo, hence, “The Pride of Juxtlahuaca”. This image also relates to the cultural significance and deep meaning behind Alejandro’s art. The devil masks harken back to the Spaniards arrival in the new world, spreading Catholicism and making awares the omnipresence temptations of El Diablo and the price paid for violating the Word.
