Art Bridges and the Carter

"Art Bridges + Amon Carter Museum of American Art"

Led by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art (the Carter), this partnership brings together institutions from three Texas museums including the Amarillo Museum of Art, Art Museum of South Texas (Corpus Christi, TX), and Ellen Noël Art Museum (Odessa, TX). The four institutions share collections, collaborate on exhibitions, and develop interpretive projects with the goal of expanding access to American art. Part of the nationwide Art Bridges Cohort Program, this partnership is unique in that it will emphasize material culture across the collections of its partners.

Phase I: In Our Own Words

An image of a museum gallery with framed art and labels on the walls.

Native Impressions: In Our Own Words at the Amarillo Museum of Art. Courtesy of the Amarillo Museum of Art

Phase I featured a previous Carter exhibition, In Our Own Words: Native Impressions (2018), touring through two of the partner cohorts. The three partner institutions worked together for the first time to design new interpretive and educational material for the exhibition, which included a video about the artist process and print didactic displays.

In Our Own Words: Native Impressions featured portraits of 12 Indigenous people by printmaker Daniel Heyman and graphic designer Lucy Ganje. The artistic and collaborative process included interviews with 12 people from four Indigenous Nations, including Standing Rock, South Dakota. The broadsides created feature each sitter’s personal oral history in his or her own words, as told to the artist while sitting for a portrait, and contain key words and phrases from each interview. Each individual shared their lives as activists, educators, politicians, veterans, and parents, discussing topics like family history, climate change, and forced assimilation. The entire portfolio was printed in North Dakota on handmade paper from the pulp of trees grown on local reservations.

Highlights from In Our Own Words

  • Daniel Heyman, Lucy Ganje

    I Couldn't Tell if He was Crying, 2015-2016

    Color reduction woodcut and letterpress on handmade mulberry and North Dakota native milkweed paper

    2017.2.3

    A two-part print of an abstract American Indian bust surrounded by text on the left, and lots of chunks of text in different sizes and colors on the right, with the word "WARRIOR" prominently in red.

  • Daniel Heyman, Lucy Ganje

    We Burn All of Their Things, 2015-2016

    Color reduction woodcut and letterpress on handmade mulberry and North Dakota native milkweed paper

    2017.2.6

  • Daniel Heyman, Lucy Ganje

    We Can Be Self-Sufficient, 2015-2016

    Color reduction woodcut and letterpress on handmade mulberry and North Dakota native milkweed paper

    2017.2.11

Exhibition dates:

Art Museum of South Texas: April 16 – September 30, 2023
Amarillo Museum of Art: December 16, 2023 – March 17, 2024

Phase II: Photography Is Art

A gallery in a museum of people looking at framed photographs on the gallery walls.

Photography Is Art at the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi. Courtesy of the Art Museum of South Texas

Phase II worked toward further integration, based on the Carter exhibition Photography Is Art (2021). The exhibition included Carter photographs and artworks from the collections of the partner institutions. The gallery texts were revised and written by the group, who also collaborated to form new interpretive material and a unified exhibition design.

Photography Is Art was originally organized by the Carter with photographs from the Carter’s expansive collection; the Art Bridges Texas Cohort presentation was reconceived as a team project with the Amarillo Museum of Art, Art Museum of South Texas, and Ellen Noël Art Museum. The artworks tell a story of American photographers’ efforts, from the late 19th century on, to explore and proclaim photography’s artfulness, and how broad acceptance of that perspective has since affected their practices. This exhibition revealed how often photographers have looked to painting for reference and ideas even as they shaped their medium’s own artistic language.

Highlights from Photography Is Art

  • Ellen Carey

    Self-portrait, 1984

    Dye diffusion transfer print

    P2018.4

    A blue-toned portrait photograph of a White woman with short hair, head turned in profile, as viewed through a checker-board like filter.

  • Eliot Porter

    May Apple, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, May 13, 1957, 1957

    Dye imbibition print

    P1989.19.17

  • Clarence H. White

    Nude, ca. 1900

    Platinum print

    P1979.148.13

Exhibition dates:

Art Museum of South Texas: January 16 – April 7, 2024
Amarillo Museum of Art: June 12 – August 11, 2024

Phase III: Home, Love, and Loss

Artwork and other displays in a museum gallery.

Home, Love, and Loss at the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi. Courtesy of the Art Museum of South Texas

Phase III is a contemporary exhibition organized by the Texas Cohort, titled Home, Love, and Loss. The works in this exhibition bring together more than 60 artworks from the collections of Art Bridges, Amarillo Museum of Art, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Art Museum of South Texas, and Ellen Noël Art Museum. Home, Love, and Loss will tour among the partner institutions through Summer 2026.

Home, Love, and Loss brings together a powerful selection 66 paintings, photographs, works on paper, and videos that speak to the broad and complex dynamic of family, home, identity, empathy, and survival as part of the human condition. Together, the works delve into the milestones and challenges of life asking us to consider our connections to one another and to reimagine home and humanity in the context of life's inevitable transformations. Taking works from each institution’s collection and traveling these works across the state of Texas not only furthers Art Bridges’ objective of expanding access to American art to inaccessible communities but encourages the support and connection of the Carter and its partner institutions.

Highlights from Home, Love, and Loss

  • Earlie Hudnall Jr.

    Wheels, 1993

    Gelatin silver print

    P1997.19

    A black-and-white photograph of four young Black boys lying on each other and a sidewalk, smiling up at the viewer.

  • Eliot Porter

    Altar, Capilla, Hacienda Tirados, near San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico, 1955-1956, 1955-1956

    Dye imbibition print

    P1990.51.3869

  • Nell Dorr

    Raphael Madonna, 1942

    Gelatin silver print

    P1990.45.205

Exhibition dates:

Art Museum of South Texas: February 13 – April 27, 2025
Amarillo Museum of Art: May 31 – September 14, 2025
Ellen Noël Art Museum: March 2026 – June 2026