Long Beach Museum of Art

Long Beach, CA – The Long Beach Museum of Art is pleased to announce its forthcoming  exhibition, The Lipton Collection, which will be presented from September 17, 2010  through April 3, 2011. The Lipton Collection will feature approximately 50 pieces of  contemporary wood art from the world-renowned collection of Dr. Irving Lipton. Works in  the Long Beach Museum of Art’s The Lipton Collection were bequeathed to the Museum  upon Dr. Lipton’s passing in 2001, and this exhibition will be the Museum’s first public  presentation of this important collection. The four other institutions that received portions of  Dr. Lipton’s original collection include Yale University Art Museum, Minneapolis Art Institute, Honolulu Art Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This exhibition  will feature works by Frank E. Cummings III (a Long Beach artist), William Hunter, Nikolai  Ossipov, Brenda Behrens, and other distinguished artists.

All of the artworks in the exhibition have been crafted in the last twenty years and utilize a  variety of common and exotic woods including: oak, maple, birch, walnut, sycamore, ebony  and African blackwood. Additionally, many pieces in the collection combine multiple  woods or wood with other materials such as metal, glass, ivory, or lacquer to  create a distinctly unique aesthetic. A number of object types will be featured in The Lipton  Collection exhibition, including utilitarian objects such as bowls and containers,  free-standing sculptures, wallmounted pieces, and other decorative objects.

The value of the Lipton Collection lies not only in the breathtaking beauty of the pieces, but  also for the historical and cultural significance attached to one of the most well-known  collections of turned wood in the world.

In addition to The Lipton Collection, the Museum will display works in wood from its  permanent collection in Branching Out. In this selection of artworks, there are a range of  aesthetic expressions, some of which feature the natural grain of the wood. Others use  wood for its structural properties or as a support for images like Binh Pho’s Lantern  Festival II. Methods of working with wood are varied from carved, to turned on a lathe, to  assembled. Branching Out will be on display from September 17, 2010 until April 3, 2011.

These exhibitions are made possible by the generous support of the Kenneth T. and  Eileen L. Norris Foundation, the Pasadena Art Alliance, the Rudolph J. and Daphne A.  Munzer Foundation, and the BCM Foundation.