'Hooked On Walter Hook' Opens At UM Museum June 3

Last Updated (Thursday, 25 June 2009 21:40) Written by jennifer.sauer Tuesday, 26 May 2009 15:39

A retrospective exhibition featuring works by renowned Montana artist Walter Hook will open at the Montana Museum of Art & Culture at UM on Wednesday, June 3, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Hook’s passing.

Contact: Lucy Capehart or Kay Grissom-Kiely, acting co-curators of art, Montana Museum of Art & Culture, 406-243-2019, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

‘HOOKED ON WALTER HOOK’ OPENS AT UM MUSEUM JUNE 3

MISSOULA—

A retrospective exhibition featuring works by renowned Montana artist Walter Hook will open at the Montana Museum of Art & Culture at The University of Montana on Wednesday, June 3, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Hook’s passing.

“Hooked on Walter Hook” will be on view in the museum’s Meloy and Paxson galleries, located in UM’s Performing Arts and Radio-Television Center, through Monday, July 13. The exhibition includes highlights of nearly 30 years of Hook’s wonderfully varied work.

Hook was well-known for his surrealist style. He often employed an intense color palette in abstract works and paintings depicting everyday objects – eggs on tables, chickens crossing the road, buffalo and kites, and cats.

Hook’s geometric abstractions explore the mathematical and scientific relationship of both color and form; his juxtaposing of symbols was his entrance into magic realism. Not limited to one artistic medium, Hook fluctuated between painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics, wood and metal sculpture, and mixed media throughout his career.

He was born and raised in Milltown and attended Bonner School, which he graced with a 30-foot mural depicting loggers and millworkers in 1957. It was his eighth-grade teacher, Eunice Brown, who first inspired his interest in art.

Hook spent his early career teaching mathematics and physics at Montana State University. He then served in World War II and, in 1950, earned a master’s degree in painting from the University of New Mexico. For the next five years, Hook managed scientific projects for the Atomic Energy Commission in Albuquerque, N.M., and in Hanford, Wash.
 
In 1955, Hook returned to Missoula to begin his career at UM as a faculty member and artist. Within two years, he became chair of the art department, where he remained for the next 20 years. Montana artist Rudy Autio once said about Hook, “No amount of analysis or direction could equal the clarity of his practical demonstrations.”

More than 80 exhibitions and awards substantiated Hook’s prolific art career, with art represented in private and public collections throughout the United States. The election as an associate in the National Academy of Design in 1972 and the Governor’s Arts Award from the Montana Arts Council in 1985 were among his rewards.

“Hooked on Walter Hook” is composed of works from MMAC’s Permanent Collection and pieces borrowed from private collectors and other museums.

MMAC will hold an opening reception for the exhibition from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, June 5, in the lobby of the PAR/TV Center. The reception is free and open to the public.

MMAC summer hours are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. There is no charge for admission, and free parking is available near the northwest corner of the PAR/TV Center.

For more information, call 406-243-2019 or go to MMAC’s Web site at http://www.umt.edu/montanamuseum.


NOTE TO MEDIA: Digital images of selected artworks included in this exhibition are available by request. Call Becky Garner, MMAC coordinator of programs and publications, at 406-243-2019 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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