FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 12, 2002
FOR MORE INFORMATION: please call (512) 322-2099
Cynthia Camlin, Director, Creative Research Laboratory
EXHIBITION DATES: August 29 - September 26, 2002
RECEPTION: Thursday, August 29, 6 - 8 pm
Regular Gallery Hours: Tues.-Sat., 12 – 5 pm

The Mystical World of
MFA Alumni 1982 - 2002

August 29 - September 26, 2002 at Creative Research Laboratory

August 12, 2002, Austin, TX: Creative Research Laboratory opens its second exhibition year on August 29 with “The Mystical World of Kelly Fearing: A Sixty-Year Retrospective.” The exhibition brings together 160 paintings, drawings, prints, and collages by the pioneering Texas artist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin.

“The Mystical World of Kelly Fearing” opens on August 29 and continues through September 26. The artist’s reception will be held on Thursday, August 29, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, at Creative Research Laboratory and Flatbed World Headquarters, 2832 East Martin Luther King Boulevard, in Austin, Texas.

Inaugurated in November 2001 as a site dedicated to research and production in contemporary art and design, Creative Research Laboratory offers a year-round schedule of exhibitions presenting the work of students and faculty in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin.

“The Mystical World of Kelly Fearing: A Sixty-Year Retrospective,” celebrates the prodigious career of one of the state’s and the region’s most admired artists and art educators. This exhibition is the most comprehensive survey of Fearing’s work to date, presenting paintings, drawings, prints, and collages from six decades, drawn from private collections across the country and from museums and galleries throughout Texas.

Born in Arkansas in 1918, Kelly Fearing studied art at Louisiana Tech University and Columbia University, where he earned a master’s degree in 1950. Fearing came to Fort Worth, Texas, in 1943 and joined a group of artists known as the “Fort Worth Circle.”

Moving beyond the realism and agrarian subject matter of American Regionalism, which dominated Texas art in the 1930s and 1940s, the Fort Worth Circle was largely responsible for introducing modernist art and ideas to Texas. Fearing and his Fort Worth cohorts were among the first artists in the state to respond to European artists such as Picasso, Braque, Klee, Kandinsky, Modigliani, Ernst, Klee, Miro, and Dubuffet.

After teaching from 1945-47 at Texas Wesleyan, Kelly Fearing went on to become the Ashbel Smith Professor of Art in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught for forty-eight years. A noted art educator, Fearing co-authored several multi-volume art education textbooks from 1960 through the 1980s.

Over the years, Kelly Fearing developed a personal and highly subjective approach, integrating figuration, abstraction, and experimentation with materials and processes. The magical environments he creates in his paintings and graphic work reflect the artist’s own meditative and explorative artistic process.

Organized by Creative Research Laboratory and the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin, “The Mystical World of Kelly Fearing: A Sixty-Year Retrospective,” brings together work in every medium and period of the artist’s illustrious career from 1939 to the present. The exhibition includes 61 paintings, 54 drawings, 16 collages, and 33 prints. A fully illustrated, 64-page color catalog accompanies the exhibition.

Curators for the exhibition are Dr. Mark Smith, founding co-director of Flatbed Press in Austin, Texas, and Dr. Amy Freeman Lee, a distinguished San Antonio-based artist, philanthropist, and community leader who founded the Texas Watercolor Society.

Several educational events will take place in conjunction with the exhibition.

On Tuesday, September 3, from 6:00 to 7:30 pm, the artist Kelly Fearing and co-curator Dr. Amy Freeman Lee will give a tour of the exhibition and a gallery talk.

On Thursday, September 12, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm, a panel discussion, “Kelly Fearing in Context: Artist and Educator” will take place at Creative Research Laboratory. The panelists include co-curator Dr. Mark Smith, moderator; Cynthia Brants, an artist also associated with the Fort Worth Circle; Scott Barker, author of a history of the Fort Worth Circle; Dr. Rebecca Brooks, Professor of Visual Art Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and co-curator Dr. Amy Freeman Lee.

On Saturday, September 21, from 1:00 to 4:00 pm, Creative Research Laboratory and Flatbed Press will host a family day workshop and storytelling event, “The Mystical World of Kelly Fearing.”

All exhibition events will take place at Creative Research Laboratory and Flatbed World Headquarters, located at 2832 East Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, one mile east of I-35. There is ample free parking and bus service available on Capitol Metro's route 18. The activities of the Department of Art and Art History and Creative Research Laboratory are free and open to the public.

For more information about the Kelly Fearing exhibition, please contact Cynthia Camlin, Director, Creative Research Laboratory at (512) 322-2099 or crlab@uts.cc.utexas.edu.

Captions for photographs:

Painting: “Man Arranging Rocks Where Water Reflects the Sky,” 1964, Oil on canvas, 39-1/4 in. x 29-1/4 in., Collection of the San Antonio Art League, San Antonio, Texas

Print: “Dark Bird in Passage Searching,” 1996, Polymer gravure, 18-1/ in. x 24-1/2 in., Courtesy of Flatbed Press, Austin, Texas