Museum at UM to Open Exhibition of Art Books
On Friday, Sept. 25, the Montana Museum of Art and Culture at the University of Montana will open a new exhibition of art books from the Dan Weinburg Collection, a recent donation to the museum’s Permanent Collection.
“Bookish: Selections from the Dan Weinburg Collection” will run from Sept. 25 through Dec. 12 in the Meloy Gallery of UM’s Performing Arts and Radio Television Center. There is no opening reception due to the coronavirus pandemic, but MMAC will offer virtual tours and programming, including a series of book reveals and interviews with scholars.
The books, donated by Montana State Sen. Dan Weinburg in 2018, were published by the New York-based Vincent FitzGerald & Co. Since 1980, that company has been recognized for bringing visual artists and writers together in creative collaboration to produce limited-edition books in the French tradition of the “livre d’artiste.” This exhibition gathers fine examples of artists’ books, prompting viewers to consider ways in which the book can evolve beyond conventional formats into other art forms.
Weinberg’s gift honors the lifelong work of his friend Vincent FitzGerald, an economics graduate of Fordham University and cousin of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. They first met while training for the Peace Corps in Bismarck, North Dakota, in 1968. In 1970, FitzGerald returned to New York to make handmade art books, which he continued to do until his retirement in 2018.
Weinberg, a clinical psychologist from Whitefish, won election to the Montana State Senate in 2004. In 2008, he founded the Montana Innocence Project, an organization that works to exonerate the innocent and prevent wrongful convictions.
For information on the exhibition’s programming, call Rafael Chacón at 406-243-2019 or email hrafael.chacon@umontana.edu. To schedule a guided tour, call Jill Johns at 406-243-4970 or jill.johns@mso.umt.edu.
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Contact: H. Rafael Chacón, Suzanne and Bruce Crocker director of MMAC, UM professor of art history and criticism, 406-243-2019, hrafael.chacon@umontana.edu.