July 02, 2009

press release...



Museum features collages from Portland artist

SALEM, Ore. — A small selection of collages by Eunice Parsons, a Portland artist and teacher who has been called an American master of collage, opens July 25 and continues through Sept. 20 at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University.

Organized by art history Professor Roger Hull, Eunice Parsons: Collages features a range of collages created during the past few decades and includes work drawn from public and private collections throughout the region. As a special feature, a 30-minute film on Parsons, produced byPortland Community College, will be shown Sept. 13 at 2 p.m. in the Roger Hull Lecture Hall at the museum. A reception to honor the artist will follow from 3 to 5 p.m. in the lobby and Study Gallery. Admission to the film and reception is free.

Parsons’ interest in bold compositions of torn and cut paper and the interplay of words and phrases, coupled with the influence of her travels to Europe and the Far East, are reflected in her striking and evocative collage work.

Born in Loma, Colo., in 1916, Parsons attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1934–36 and the Portland Art Museum School from 1950–54. An art teacher at Portland State University and the Portland Art Museum School, she has been included in dozens of one-person and group exhibitions in the past 60 years and is included in the permanent collections of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon, Kaiser Permanente and the Portland Art Museum, among others.

Eunice Parsons: Collages has been supported in part by grants from the City of Salem’s Transient Occupancy Tax funds and the Oregon Arts Commission.

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