Centering Modernism: J. Jay McVicker and Postwar American Art

September 25, 2018 – January 19, 2019

This exhibition recovers the artistry of Jesse Jay McVicker (1911-2004), a mid-twentieth-century painter, printmaker, and sculptor on faculty at Oklahoma State University. Over six decades, McVicker exhibited internationally, creating work in a wide range of modernist styles. But as New York and Los Angeles increasingly claimed the avant-garde in the 1950s and 1960s, McVicker — and many of his colleagues — all but disappeared from history. Centering Modernism fills this gap in reintroducing McVicker's contributions to international modernism.