Press Room:
Arkansas Arts Center to host Art and The White House: Presidential Selections 1960-2000 November 19, 2004 - January 23, 2005

For more information contact:
Heather Haywood
Deputy Director of Marketing
501-396-0323
hhaywood@arkarts.com


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Arkansas Arts Center to host Art and The White House: Presidential Selections 1960-2000 November 19, 2004 - January 23, 2005

The Arkansas Arts Center will host Art and The White House: Presidential Selections 1960-2000 in conjunction with the opening of The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park. The exhibition will be held November 19, 2004, through January 23, 2005, in the Jeannette Edris Rockefeller Gallery at the Arkansas Arts Center.

Organized in cooperation with The William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation, the exhibition features works of art previously borrowed by Presidents for the White House from many of the nation's finest art museums, including the National Gallery of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Corcoran Gallery of Art; the Heard Museum; and the Smithsonian Institution. The exhibition represents the selections of eight administrations, from Kennedy to Clinton.

Forty-one significant and beautiful works of art by artists such as George Catlin, Dale Chihuly, Carroll Cloar, George P.A. Healy, Roy Lichtenstein, C.W. Love, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Georgia O'Keeffe, Rembrandt Peale, Auguste Rodin, John Singer Sargent and James Verrier will be on view. The works have been identified by the White House Office of the Curator and selected by the Arkansas Arts Center Executive Director Ellen A. Plummer and Curator of Art Brian Young.

"We are very excited that the Arkansas Arts Center will offer such an important exhibition during this historic event," said Ellen A. Plummer, executive director.

"The exhibition tells the story of the kind of images and creative expression the Presidents and First Ladies wanted surrounding them in the White House. The First Families' personal tastes and their different ways of personalizing the most public home in the nation are explored. To create the exhibition, we have borrowed some of the works that Presidents borrowed for the White House," Plummer said.

Plummer stated that as they have been working on the exhibition several themes have emerged, such as great art and artists, portraits of other servants of the American people and images of American places.

"Because of the Arkansas Arts Center's proven care of our permanent collection, our prominent collection of drawings and our reputation among museums, we are able to borrow these important works of art," added Brian Young, curator of art.

"The opening of the Clinton Presidential Center is a significant moment in the history of our nation, our state, and our city," stated Plummer. "In creating this exhibition, the Arkansas Arts Center is making its unique contribution to this historic event. We have brought major works of art to Little Rock when the eyes of the country and the world are on us and tell a story about art and the Presidency that has not yet been told."

GENERAL INFORMATION
Contact: 501-372-4000
Location: Arkansas Arts Center - 9th and Commerce, Little Rock, AR 72202
Gallery Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday
11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday
Closed Monday and Major Holidays

CATALOG
A full-color brochure will accompany the exhibition.