CURRENT EXHIBITS

Mari Lyons

Vanitas

On view in Halleck Bar Gallery until December 11, 2022 Mari Lyons sought to be a “complete painter,” and over her long career worked regularly in charcoal, pastel, and oil in her studio and en plein air. She worked in a variety of genres – still life, cityscape, studio interior, landscape, portrait, self-portrait, abstraction, and figure. She rallied to Herman Melville's call in Moby-Dick, "I try all things, I achieve what I can.” This collection of work was donated to Northeastern Nevada Museum in 2021 by the family of Mari Lyons. Together, these pieces give the viewer a sense of the passing of time and the inevitability of change and death. The term vanitas refers to a still-life artwork which includes various symbolic objects designed to remind the viewer of their mortality and of the worthlessness of worldly goods and pleasures. The artist’s love of this subject matter is evident within this exhibition. Objects like flower bouquets refer to youth, beauty, and pleasure whereas the repeating images of clocks and skulls remind one of the transience of life and the certainty of death. Lyons studied at Mills College (with Max Beckmann and Fletcher Martin); Bard College (with Louis Schanker and Ludwig Sander, Stefan Hirsch), BA; Atelier 17 (with Stanley William Hayter); The Grand Chaumiere; Yale- Norfolk Art School (with Bernard Chaet and Gabor Peterdi); and at the Cranbrook Academy of Art (with Zoltan Zepeshy, Madison Fred Mitchell), MFA. She exhibited widely throughout the country, and one of her Montana Landscapes traveled to Tunis as part of the Art-in- Embassies Program of The U.S. Department of State. She had fifteen one-person shows at First Street Gallery in New York City, along with one and two-person shows at Rider University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Kirkland Art Center (Clinton, NY), Windham Fine Arts (Windham, NY), Polari Gallery (Woodstock, NY), The Forsythe Gallery (Ann Arbor, MI); and more. Mari was married to the writer and book publisher, Nick Lyons. Their family includes four children and four grandchildren. She maintained studios in New York City and Woodstock, New York. She Died April 3, 2016. Mari leaves behind hundreds of paintings and drawings. Her family generously donated 19 original works of art to Northeastern Nevada Museum. Over the next years, more of her work will be visible, through exhibitions, contributions, and updates to her website.

Elko County Art Club

Annual Show & Sale

On view in Barrick Gallery until December 11, 2022 Lee Silliman is a retired educator and museum employee living in Missoula, Montana. He was a Montana secondary level physics, chemistry, and mathematics instructor for 43 years, as well as the part-time photo archivist for a county museum for 26 years. Since early childhood, he has nurtured a strong interest in the art and history of the 19 th century American West. Silliman began the craft of photography in 1979, built his own darkroom and picture framing shop in 1983, and began using a Wisner 8 x 10-inch field view camera in 1989. The great photographic master Ansel Adams was Silliman’s artistic inspiration, as well as the source of important technical information on the craft of silver- based film photography. Utilizing his own photographs, the historic photos from the museum collection he managed, as well as vintage engravings that he purchased, Silliman has assembled and circulated numerous exhibits that have been displayed in more than one hundred venues throughout Montana and ten other states since 1988. His photographic subjects have included western ghost towns and mining remnants, Yellowstone National Park backcountry landscapes, the Bob Marshall Wilderness, Native American ruins of the Southwest, Southwestern landscapes, and early 20 th century homestead era remnants. Silliman’s interests in photography, calligraphy, and Western Americana art and history have spawned many published articles on these subjects, plus six books that he has edited and published. His most recent book was A Ride to the Infernal Regions: Yellowstone’s First Tourists (Riverbend Press, Helena, MT, 2003). He has presented many conference lectures, taught numerous workshops, and led four educational group tours. Silliman holds BS and MS degrees from the University of Illinois. He is married and has two daughters.