WOMEN ARTISTS OF THE WEST’S 48TH NATIONAL EXHIBITION
Women Artists of the West holds its 48th annual exhibition at Price Tower Arts Center.
One of the country’s oldest juried women’s art organizations, Women Artists of the West, will host its 48th national exhibition at Price Tower Arts Center in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, opening September 20. The organization is made up of award-winning, professional women artists, including Lee Tisch Bialczak, Patricia Rose Ford and Robbie Fitzpatrick.
The Price Tower Arts Center where the show will take place is an artwork in itself. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1956, the 19-story building is a landmark in Bartlesville, only 40 minutes north of Tulsa. As host of the show, it will award $20,000 in cash and prizes to the women artists participating in the Women Artists of the
West’s exhibition, titled Tallgrass Rendezvous.
This year’s awards juror is traditional realist painter Krystii Melaine, who has been given the task of selecting award winners from the more than 175 pieces of artwork from the exhibition. Of the responsibility, Melaine says. “I am very honored to be the juror of awards. This exhibition represents an outstanding group of women artists and I look forward to a fabulous show.”
Founded in 1971, Women Artists of the West originated in Norco, California, with a small group of women artists wanting to network and compete in the art world. Initially, they limited their membership to 35 women who played an active role, investing time and money to promote professional growth. Since then, they have expanded their membership to 350 painters and sculptors, as well as expanding the focus of the artwork from solely Western works to all genres and subject matter.
The Women Artists of the West Tallgrass Rendezvous will kick off with a donors’ and patrons’ presale and reception on September 20 from 5 to 6:30 p.m. An opening reception and awards presentation will take place September 21 from 6 to 8 p.m. Artists will demonstrate their work September 22, and take part in a rendezvous and paint out at Bartlesville’s Woolaroc Museum and Wildlife Preserve on September 23. The exhibition remains on view through November 4.