Make your mark at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art 🔠❗️
Join us for Spotlight: Just My Type on Saturday, June 6, from 1–3 pm.
Inspired by artists who experiment with letters, symbols, and punctuation, this event invites visitors of all ages to search for hidden words in the galleries, design expressive emoticons, and create abstract images using letters from A to Z.
Included with museum admission. Free for visitors 17 and under and for current OU students, faculty, and staff. General admission for adults is $12.
This event is made possible through the generous support of the Norman Arts Council.
On the Edge: The Abstract World of Frederick Hammersley is now on view through September 6 🔷
Celebrate opening day with free admission for Second Friday
Finals week calls for a change of scenery 📚✨
Join us for OU Study Week at the museum on May 9, 10, 12, and 13 during regular museum hours. Whether you’re cramming for exams, grading papers, or just looking for a quiet place to recharge, the galleries are open and waiting for you.
Free snacks and drinks provided for OU students, faculty, and staff.
On the Edge: The Abstract World of Frederick Hammersley opens to the public this Friday, May 8
Bold color, crisp geometry, and striking abstraction come together across more than 45 paintings and drawings, tracing Hammersley’s distinctive approach to form and his role in the Hard-edge movement.
On view May 8–September 6 ✦
If you haven’t seen the latest Focus Gallery installation yet, Poetry Month is a great time to stop by and check it out. Organized by students from recent OU Exhibition Preparation and Presentation classes, it tells the story of cultural exchange between the state of Oklahoma and the East African nation of Ethiopia over the past 50 years. In addition to paintings, photographs, and archival material, the exhibit includes a poem by featured artist Gabre Kristos Desta.
The Focus Gallery will be on view until late summer. Thanks to the student curators and their instructor, Emily Burns of the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West, for all their hard work on this project!
The valley
was a hand,
its pudgy fingers
forming a bowl
to contain the water,
which the sky
would
sip.
A Norman sixth-grade student wrote this poem in response to Thomas Moran’s landscape painting as part of a past creative writing program at the museum. Which artwork would you choose as the starting point for a poem? Come pick up a “pocket poem” card in the lobby anytime this month to find this and other pairings of art and poetry around our galleries or get inspired to create something of your own! #NationalPoetryMonth
🖼️: Thomas Moran (U.S. 1837–1926); Lake Martha, in the Wahsatch Range, 1895; Oil on canvas board; Purchase, Richard H. and Adeline J. Fleischaker Collection, 1996
Tax day? Nah! We’re celebrating World Art Day instead 🎨
Our permanent collection spans the globe, and we’re excited to highlight select works in our newly reinstalled galleries.
A 90s view of the museum, when this entrance welcomed visitors in ✨ Help us keep growing into the future by supporting the museum this Giving Day at the link in bio
#OUGivingDay #ThrowbackTuesday
We think we look pretty good for 90!
Sooner Born, Sooner Bred, and built on a legacy that began with Oscar Jacobson (1881–1966), who became the director of the School of Art in 1915. At that time, the University of Oklahoma had only one art class on campus, and Oklahoma had no art museums or collections available to the public. In 1936, after a generous gift from Lew Wentz and Gordon Matzene of Ponca City, the University of Oklahoma Museum of Art was officially founded and Jacobson was named its director.
Support the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art this Giving Day to help continue this legacy. Link to donate is in bio. Here’s to the next 90 years! #OUGivingDay
📸 Donor with work, The Oklahoman 1937
Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold…
Robert Frost’s 1923 poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” has been memorized by schoolchildren, adapted by numerous musicians, and even referenced in the book and film The Outsiders. “Stay gold, Ponyboy.” ✨ Pick up a #PocketPoem card in our lobby this month to find this and other pairings of art and poetry around the museum in celebration of #NationalPoetryMonth.
🖼️: Joseph Henry Sharp (U.S. 1859–1953); A Million Aspen Leaves, no date; Oil on canvas; The Eugene B. Adkins Collection
