UAFS Gallery of Art and Design Announces New Donation, Exhibit

Written By: Ian Silvester

The University of Arkansas – Fort Smith Gallery of Art and Design welcomes work by a former professor to its permanent collection and will showcase his works in an exhibit during the fall of 2023.
 
Gallery Director and Assistant Professor Dr. Matt Bailey is delighted to bring the extensive donation to UAFS and the community, highlighting the artwork of Harold Keller (1928-2017). The exhibit, “Harold Keller: Portals,” will be housed in the Windgate Art and Design exhibition gallery starting Sept. 8, following a public reception from 6-8 p.m. Guests can visit the exhibition weekdays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. through the end of the fall semester, closing on Dec. 16.
 
Keller was born in Brooklyn, New York, and received a Bachelor of Arts in Art and Philosophy from the University of Arkansas in 1949. After graduating, he taught at several regional high schools before being hired at Fort Smith Junior College, where he taught from 1956 until 1962.
 
After leaving Fort Smith, Keller and his family returned to New York. In a sense, Keller’s work will once again call UAFS home, conceptually, if not physically. Keller’s daughter, Victoria, donated the pieces from her late father: seven paintings, seven ceramic works, twenty-seven drawings, two artist books, and a collection of over 300 working drawings from across the artist’s career.
 
The public has never seen most of the work to be displayed because it was stored in the artist’s Greenwich, NY, studio. Bailey secured loans of Keller’s creation from private collectors along with the generous donation.
 
“His work is unique,” Bailey explained. “It’s a witty and erudite fusion of the fantastic and the everyday that really sticks with you.”
 
The “Harold Keller: Portals” exhibit will also feature a small catalog with essays by Bailey and Victoria Keller. The catalog will be published in November and accompanied by a talk by Bailey, examining Keller’s work from a historical perspective.
 
“Keller was meticulous, a master craftsman, and extremely thoughtful in the themes and imagery represented. His work responds to the political and cultural climate of his everyday life. It will be great for students and the community to see his sophisticated themes in a specific exhibition narrative,” Bailey shared.
 
Showcasing the impact of UAFS, the exhibit will feature works from Keller’s time as a professor at the university. It includes drawings, ceramics, and a painting. Bailey detailed how the work displayed from the six years Keller spent at UAFS demonstrates “a time when he was really coming into his own as an artist.”
 
Keller’s archives were given to the UAFS Boreham Library Pebley Center in 2021. With the art collection, UAFS becomes the largest repository of Keller’s work and “impactfully transforms and expands the University’s permanent art collection, building on the already excellent collection of contemporary art already acquired before I became the gallery director,” Bailey touted.
 
For more information about the exhibit, visit the UAFS Gallery of Art and Design website, and to learn more about Keller, visit the artist’s website. The UAFS Gallery of Art and Design can be reached by email or phone at (479) 788-7542.

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• Harold Keller
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