Public Programs:
Thursday, July 4th from 4 to 8 pm — Opening Celebration
Please join us to welcome Mary Frances Judge with with light refreshments, music, conversation, and a community celebration.
Saturday, July 6th — Artist Talk on Art
Mary Frances Judge will lead a discussion and tour of her paintings on view in Spiritual Light. The program will be introduced by Steven Montgomery, Ms. Judge’s long time friend and colleague. He is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has shown at the Museum of Modern Art in NY and many other venues.
Saturday July 27 — Mary Frances Judge in Films
A variety of films that explore the art of Mary Frances Judge will be shown, followed by a tour of the exhibit and a discussion.
School Tour Program
From September throughout the school year: Discipline-based, child-centered art education, K-12, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Call for pre-visit info and fees. School Tour program supported by the Museum of Friends Board of Trustees.
Let your visual senses have a tranquil moment as you enter the sanctuary of tondo paintings. Your eyes move easily and gently as you are taken to a new dimension. Are you at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, TX? No, you are at the Museum of Friends in Walsenburg, CO – ‘the destination place in Huerfano County.’
The tondo, a circular painting, became fashionable in the mid-15th century Italian Renaissance Art. Mary Frances Judge, fascinated with Italian culture and the
symbolism of the circle’s endless round form feels that “in nature there are no not true shapes.” She has revived the tondo “more consistently than any other contemporary artist.”
New York Times columnist Marian Courtney referred to Judge’s 1983 solo exhibition as “a collection of mystical paintings in lyrical bursts of color that show the emergence of the soul.” Forty years later Judge is still au current. Her canvases exude energy and light.
The earliest and only representational work in the exhibition is “Vesta, 1982”. This is a silhouette of a woman in a dream state. “Europa, 1996” the 72-inch oil on linen is the largest tondo in the exhibition and was featured in a New York, NY show. Gallery & Studio, an art magazine review commented “a chromatic dynamism suggesting the painter has dipped her brush in liquid light”. “Circolare, 2010”, is not a tondo. The delicate curve lines against the yellow background are ethereal, and can suit whatever your mood since this painting can be hung vertically or horizontally.
MFJ, born in Minneapolis, MN, has made a career of painting and traveling the world. Like her work she is calm & soothing with a burst of enthusiasm for Peace & Joy.
Jane St. Lifer, New York, New York, 2024
This exhibition is made possible by generous support from Mary Frances Judge, Steven Montgomery, Colorado Creative Industries and OEDIT.
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