Press Release

(March 19, 2008) - As Art League Houston celebrates its 60th Anniversary, we proudly announce the selection of Melissa Miller as the 2008 Texas Artist of the Year and Ann and James Harithas as Texas Patrons of the Year. Art League Houston has been a leader in supporting contemporary art in Houston for over sixty years, working to make the contemporary arts accessible to all. Through its Texas Artist and Patron of the Year Award, Art League Houston honors those whose work or patronage has had a significant and positive impact on contemporary visual art in Texas.

"The arts community and the state of Texas are especially fortunate to have the talent, dedication and courage of individuals such as Melissa Miller and Ann and James Harithas," said Michael Rudelson, Art League Houston President. "We are extremely pleased to have them as our 2008 honorees."

In 1983 ALH created the Texas Artist of the Year award as a dynamic and informative annual project documenting Texas art history. Since then, twenty-five outstanding artists and six exceptional patrons have received the award.

Michael Duncan writes in "Melissa Miller", published by the University of Texas Press (2007), "Nationally acclaimed for her bold, imaginative, allegorical paintings of animals, Melissa Miller is an iconoclastic artist who has fearlessly worked outside of prevailing artistic styles and movements since the mid-1970's. Miller draws on a wider variety of literary and art historical sources than most contemporary artists, as well as a deeply felt connection to the natural world, to compose narratives that use animal actors to powerfully express humanity's inchoate fears and longings."

Houston-born Miller attended the University of Texas Austin and the Museum of Fine Arts School, Houston, and has a B.F.A. from the University of New Mexico (1974). Her paintings have been included in the Whitney Biennial and the Venice Bienniale, and exhibited in a number of major museums and institutions including the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, the American Academy and Institute of Art and Letters, the Whitney Museum of American Art and New Orleans Museum of Art, among others. Melissa Miller's work is also in numerous private and public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, in Washington D.C. Ms. Miller has received many honors for her work, including three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and an award from the Anonymous was a Woman Foundation. Her work is currently represented by Moody Gallery in Houston and Dunn and Brown Contemporary in Dallas, Texas. Miller lives in Austin, where she is Associate Professor of Art at the University of Texas.

Patrons Ann and James Harithas not only support and cultivate the arts in Texas, but have elevated the cultural landscape of our city by challenging conventions and expanding our definition of the arts to include works that are socially conscious and culturally relevant. Ann and James champion under-recognized artists and their largesse helps to support a multitude of non-profits, including Art League Houston, Fotofest, Lawndale Art Center, DiverseWorks, Aurora Picture Show, Voices Breaking Boundaries, Latinos for Texas, the Longview Museum of Art, The Alliance for American Quilts, and The Studio Museum in Harlem, among others.

While Director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in the late 1960's, James Harithas radicalized its exhibition program by instituting a series of one person exhibitions by both black and white local artists - something unheard of at the time. He also brought the Corcoran's antiquated Biennial up to date by including works of avant garde artists from around the country. During his tenure as Director of the Everson Museum in Syracuse, New York (1971-1974), Harithas and others established the first video exhibitions department in a museum, working with seminal figures such as Nam June Paik and Bill Viola. In 1974, when he became the Director of the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston he immediately elevated the museum to national prominence, through a series of provocative shows and art happenings, including Julian Schnabel's first museum solo exhibition in 1975. In addition to curating pioneering exhibitions, James Harithas has written numerous critically acclaimed essays for museums and other publications, on the works of Norman Bluhm, John Chamberlain, and John Singer Sargent, and others.

Ann, an artist in her own right who has exhibited her collages across the globe at venues that include Moody Gallery, the Arlington Museum and the Shanghai Museum, curated an exhibition that started a revolution, the 1984 Collision exhibit at Lawndale Art and Performance. Collision featured the work of Luis Jimenez and Jesse Lott, and introduced Houston audiences and the world to the art cars of Californians Larry Fuente and David Best. From this trailblazing exhibit grew a phenomenon that cannot be checked, the Art Car Parade. Out of Ann's passion and commitment to the art car in all its permutations, including art cars, low riders and mobile contraptions, came the Art Car Museum, founded by the couple and designed and built by David Best in 1998. In 2002, James and Ann founded the Station, which is responsible for some of the most profound and thought provoking exhibitions the nation has ever seen. Two examples include "Out of Palestine" (2003), the first exhibition of contemporary Palestinian art to ever open in the United States and "Red Fall" (2004), which some will say augured the country's current political climate. In 2006, Ann Harithas and the New York-based non-profit Creative Time were executive producers of internationally recognized artist Mel Chin's animated film '9-11/9-11: A Tale of Two Cities, A Tragedy of Two Time," which had simultaneous screens at the Tribeca Film Center in New York and the Palacio Le Moneda in Satiago, Chile. The contributions of this amazing couple go on and on and on.

"Strength and individual conviction, coupled with unwavering commitment and talent - these are the key reasons why Melissa Miller and Ann and James Harithas were selected as our honorees," said Billie Chasen, Art League Houston Interim Director. "We are committed to providing the community with opportunities to explore topics of cultural, humanistic, and social relevance. I can't think of a better way to inspire people than by paying tribute to the talent and generosity of these three exceptional honorees."

All three honorees will be celebrated at Art League Houston's 60th Anniversary Gala at the Hotel ZaZa on November 22, 2008. As Texas Artist of the Year, Melissa Miller will be featured in an exhibition at Art League Houston September12 - October 24, 2008.

The 2008 Texas Artist and Texas Patrons of the Year Awards are generously underwritten by Aqua Foxx Productions and Kevin and Laurie Foxx.

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