Art of Music
Title: Quintet, 1976
Artist: Meyer F. Lieberman (American b. 1923)
Medium: Screenprint
Collection of Reba and Dave Williams.
Image Courtesy: Mississippi Museum of Art
Sight of Music
Mississippi Museum of Art
July 5 - September 7, 2008
Music inspires art. One creative endeavor impacts another; hardly surprising. The Mississippi Museum of
Art explores the relationship between artists and music in their recently opened exhibition The Sight
of Music.
Included will be artworks by Meyer F. Lieberman, Frederick Gerhard Becker, George Von Physter, George Schreiber
Peter Grippe, Thomas Hart Benton, Red Grooms, John Cage, Billy Morrow Jackson, Lou Barlow
and Robert Motherwell.
Frederick Gerhard Becker
Title: Jam Session, 1936
Artist: Frederick Gerhard Becker (American 1913 – 2004)
Medium: Wood Engraving
Collection of Reba and Dave Williams.
Image Courtesy: Mississippi Museum of Art
Frederick Gerhard Becker, Junior was the son of silent movie actor Frederick Gerhard Becker, Senior. Born
in Oakland, California, given his father's career, Becker was raised in Hollywood. At first he
was drawn to architecture and studied the subject at New York University. Realizing
it wasn't where he saw his future he switched his attentions to drawing. Of the subjects to find their way
to his canvas, he favored the genre of music most of all.
George Von Physter
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Title: Press Roll, ca. 1935-1943.
Artist: George Von Physter (American 1909 – 1986)
Medium: Lithograph
Collection of Reba and Dave Williams.
Image Courtesy: Mississippi Museum of Art
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Creativity was in George Von Physter's blood.
His mother was an artist; he recalled the ability to draw from an early age.
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Music was his first entry into the art scene. Von Physter played bass for numerous bands and groups
in the Chicago area. Always his pencils beckoned, eventually he studied at
the Chicago Art Institute with Hubert Rupp.
He developed an interest in lithography and was able to excel at this field, certainly evident
with his fine work Press Roll, on view in the exhibit.
George Schreiber
Title: Jazz, 1962
Artist: George Schreiber (Belgian-American 1904 – 1977)
Medium: Lithograph
Collection of Reba and Dave Williams.
Image Courtesy: Mississippi Museum of Art
Brussels native George Schreiber was able to study many of the old masters. His travels and artistic
studies took him across multiple European cities including Florence, Rome, Berlin, Paris and London.
Early in his career his work was best described as part of the American Regionalism. Yet by the 1960's,
such as here in Jazz, his style was abstract. The figure placement in this work certainly adds
to the internal message.
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Peter Grippe is usually described as an Abstract Sculptor.
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Title: Jazz Musicians, 1945
Artist: Peter Grippe (American 1912 – 2002)
Medium: Engraving
Collection of Reba and Dave Williams.
Image Courtesy: Mississippi Museum of Art
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The Buffalo, New York native studied at both the Albright-Knox Art School and
the Art Institute of Buffalo. It is his sculpture work for which he is most remembered such as his
wonderful still life series of images captured in bronze.
Grippe was the first professor of sculpture and graphics at Waltham's Brandeis University in
Massachusetts.
The Sight of Music features one hundred works spanning the 1920s through the 1990s and
traversing multiple interpretations and variations on the theme of music.
Sight of Music:
Mississippi Museum of Art:
July 5 - September 7, 2008
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