|
Art Collections at the Moores School of Music
About the Moores Opera House (including work of Frank Stella, Stephen de Staebler, and Issac Maxwell)
Inaugurated in 1997, the Moores Opera House is a gift from John and Rebecca Moores and is the
largest performance space in the 142,000-square-foot Moores School of Music building on the University of Houston campus. The house is accessed through the Jane Blaffer Owen Plaza, itself dominated by American Stephen De Staebler's sculpture, "Winged
Victory" (1996).
 |
|
Stephen de Staebler,
"Winged Victory" (1996) |
|
| |
|
American abstract painter Frank Stella, one of the most adventurous and versatile artists of his generation,
has made the house's grand entrance hall and lobby a masterpiece with his brilliant colors, sweeping arabesques, and geometric
shapes covering the entire length of the vaulted ceiling and back wall (see the Stella Project, below).
The lobby and theater also feature wall sconces and a chandelier commissioned from Isaac Maxwell, an
artist specializing in fixtures that are not only functional but also aesthetically pleasing. Light emanating from perforations in the worked metals create intricate patterns and reflections in the theater.
The 800-seat theater itself is somewhat reminiscent of an eighteenth-century opera house, with two tiers of
boxes outlining a horseshoe-shaped configuration of crimson seats. The Mathes Group, designers of the
entire Moores School of Music building, worked with internationally known consultants Christopher Jaffe in acoustics and Richard Kilbrow in theater design to bring audiences and performers into optimum
proximity.
The 50-foot-wide stage proscenium defines a space in which the school mounts productions by the Edyth Bates Old Moores
Opera Center as well as concerts by the school's Symphony Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, Jazz Orchestra,
numerous choral ensembles, and faculty artists, all in concerts supported by state-of-the-art lighting and recording
systems.
About the Stella Project in the Moores Opera House
The painting and 1997 installation of the 5000-square-foot Stella Project inside the theater of the Moores Opera House was a city-wide collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Contemporary Arts Museum, The Menil Collection, The Cultural Arts Council of Houston and Harris County, the Blaffer Gallery, and the Moores School of Music Society.
| |
Theater at the Moores Opera House,
with a view of the Stella Project
|
| |
|
| |
 |
| |
Ceiling of the Moores
Opera House lobby |
Stella has won fame for his innovative paintings, sculptures, and prints, and in the 1990s became increasingly interested in public art and what he terms "pictorial architecture." He has created a number of large-scale, public projects, among them a mural for the Gas Company Tower in Los Angeles (1991), a series of works (including a 10,000-square-foot mural) for the Prince of Wales Theater in Toronto (1992–93), and the aluminum bandshell in downtown Miami (1999).
Stella's work has particular significance for Houston audiences. He credits the beginning of his interest in public art projects to the 1982 installation of the "Stella by Starlight" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He is represented in the city by significant works in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, the Menil Collection, and the collections of a number of private individuals. In 1989, Houston's Contemporary Arts Museum hosted a major retrospective of his work, organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The Stella Project for the Moores School of Music focuses on the centerpiece of the music building: the 800-seat, classically designed theater and lobby for the Moores Opera House. In the theater space, Stella created a work for the dome of the hall, an oval applied to the catwalk and lighting baffle and suspended over the audience. Intrigued also by the architectural form of the lobby, he created a work there that covers the entire length of the sixteen-foot vaulted ceiling and flows onto the waIl wall of the mezzanine, creating a kind of Sistine Chapel for the 21st century. The work is unlike any performance space, not only in Houston but in the world, and is an important addition to public art on both the University campus and in the city of Houston.
 Read an article on Frank Stella from the April 2007 edition of Men's Vogue magazine
About the Ary Stillman Green Room in the Moores Opera House
 |
|
Still Life (1910) |
|
| |
|
 |
|
Nassau Street (1942) |
|
| |
|
 |
|
Scherzo (1960) |
|
Many places served as home for Ary Stillman during his long and eventful
lifetime: the tiny village in White Russia where as a youngster he fulfilled
a vague longing by cutting out designs from rough paper and filling them in
with colors—a collage; the midwestern town in the United States (Sioux City, Iowa)
where the immigrant boy worked by day to support himself, his mother, his sister and
brothers, and then by night set up an easel and painted portraits and still-lifes; Paris in the legendary 1920s and '30s where, inspired by the
beauty of his surroundings, he produced poetic and sensuously rich canvasses
acclaimed by Paris critics; and New York City, where he played a leading role in the art scene of
the 1930s, '40s, and early '50s, with a steady succession of one-man exhibitions
and group showings.
Then, in the last decade of his life, Stillman made his home for five years in Mexico and an
equal number in Houston. Mexico followed a period of declining health, an eye
injury, the loss of his longtime studio in New York, and a futile search for a suitable
setting in Paris.
He had spent a happy six months in Mexico in 1940, and thought perhaps he could find inspiration if he returned. Indeed, the beauty and peace of Cuernavaca
seemd to work magic on him. Gradually his health improved, and a whole new series of exotic fantasies came forth—"the culmination of his artistic career," many
critics agreed. But by 1962 ill health plagued Stillman to such an extent that he felt compelled
to seek the loving care of his family and friends in Houston, Texas. He
continued working during his years in Houston, but at an increasingly slower pace.
During his final years, the University of Houston persuaded him to mount an exhibition at their art gallery. Dr. Peter Guenther wrote of that 1964 showing:
"Mastery of the medium, sensitivity, and the quiet, strong determination to permit the inner reality to find its expression in a modern and very personal form, mark the works of Ary Stillman exhibited here for the first time in Houston. Although the selections given here span more years than the average age of our students, they are only a small part of the painter's creative horizon. The exhibition is therefore not a retrospective one and no viewer need impose a historical attitude on himself, but may permit these works to span the gap between the knowledge of today and the experience and wisdom of ages-long-past, through images which a painter's heart and mind have gathered and gained through the years."
Upon construction of the new Moores School of Music building in 1996, then director of the School of Music David Tomatz asked the Stillman family for permission to house a significant number of Stillman's paintings in the green room of the new Moores Opera House, to be known as the Ary Stillman Green Room. The response was affirmative and enthusiastic, and the school now houses the largest retrospective of Stillman's work on public display and exhibits some of the finest examples of each period of his long and fruitful life.
More information on Ary Stillman is available from the Stillman-Lack foundation, a non-profit organization working to promote the artwork of Ary Stillman. Visit the foundation's web site at www.stillmanlack.org. |
