BEN WOITENA: A Retrospective (1963-2008)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Time Line, Ben Woitena, 2005

Intercontinental Airport Houston, Terminal “E”

The Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum exhibits an overview of 45 years of work by sculptor Ben Woitena. Ben Woitena:

A Retrospective (1963–2008) encompasses drawings, mixed media works, and sculptures in cast bronze, stone, various metals

and wood dating from 1963 through 2008. The exhibition includes indoor and outdoor sculptures on loan by collectors and

the artist, in addition to maquettes of large-scale and monumental public sculptures and photographs of them in situ. Woitena,

primarily recognized for his monumental works, is represented in the collections of corporations, individuals, municipalities and

museums nationally: Selected collections include Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, Texas; City of Abilene, Texas; City of

Houston, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; City of Lowell, Massachusetts; City of Texas City, Texas,

El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, Texas; Museum of the Southeast, Beaumont, Texas; JH Partners, Investment Builders,

Houston, Texas; Omni Mandalay Hotel at Las Colinas, Dallas (Irving), Texas; San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas;

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York; The Old Jail Art Center; Albany, Texas; The

Woodlands Corporation, The Woodlands, Texas; Trammell Crow Company, Irving, Texas; and Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler

Texas. Woitena also has a long history of participation in monumental invitational exhibitions, nationally.

In their purest forms, Woitena’s bronze, steel, and wood sculptures blatantly declare their origins: In their most wily forms,

he intercedes to mediate the meaning of what it is to be bronze, steel, or wood. Woitena, who received a BFA from the

University of Texas at Austin in 1964, served as lab assistant and was the student of Professor Charles Umlauf, and in 1987

was designated Artistic Supervisor for the replication of the Goddess of Liberty atop the State Capital in Austin, Texas. Bronze

maquettes of the Goddess of Liberty were created by Woitena, and an edition is on loan for the exhibition from collector Artie

Lee Hinds, of Houston, Texas. Woitena was formally educated in the figural tradition of drawing, clay modeling and carving.

He received his MFA in 1970 from the University of Southern California on scholarship as a teaching assistant under the

tutelage of Professor Hal Gebhardt. From 1971 through 1998, Woitena was head of sculpture at the Glassell School of Art,

Houston Museum of Fine Arts, in Houston, Texas, where he currently resides and maintains two full-time studios.

# # #

For further information contact: Nelie Plourde, Curator, Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum;

Telephone (512) 445-5582; Facsimile (512) 445-5583; E-mail <Curator@UmlaufSculpture.org>