For more than seven decades, the relationship between Lamar University and the Art Museum of Southeast Texas has extended beyond geography.
From professors exhibiting their work in the museum’s earliest years to generations of students becoming artists and educators themselves, the connection between the two institutions has helped shape Southeast Texas’ artistic community.
“There’s almost like this family tree you can follow of artists who were teaching at Lamar,” Caitlin Clay, AMSET curator of exhibitions, said. “Who taught young artists? Those artists went on to sometimes teach at Lamar, and now are teaching or did teach artists that are living and working in our community today.”
Lamar artists are featured in AMSET’s current exhibition, “A Legacy of Collecting,” which includes 65 artworks from the permanent collection covering 39 years, on display through Sept. 20,
That artistic family tree can be traced back decades.
An archival clipping, dated April 22, 1955, documents one of the earliest recorded collaborations between the Beaumont Art Museum, AMSET’s predecessor, and Lamar Tech. The museum sponsored a public art demonstration at the school featuring painter Henry Gasser, demonstrating that the institutions’ relationship extended beyond visitors simply attending exhibitions.
Lamar professors were also exhibiting their work at the museum from its earliest years, Clay said.
“It hasn’t just been the museum that existed, the professors came, they were visitors like everybody else,” she said. “From the very beginning, they were having exhibitions of Lamar professors’ work and Lamar students’ work.”
The relationship continued as both institutions evolved.
The museum was founded in 1950 as the Beaumont Art Museum before moving to its current location and becoming the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in 1987. Throughout those changes, Lamar faculty members remained connected to the museum through exhibitions and mentorship.
One of the influential faculty members was Robert Rogan, who taught at Lamar from 1961 to 1990 and served as chair of the art department for 19 years. Rogan was instrumental in shifting the department’s focus from commercial art toward fine art.
Another was Robert Madden, who began teaching at Lamar in 1959 and remained there for more than 35 years. Among the artists Madden taught was photographer Keith Carter, who later became a longtime photography professor at Lamar himself.
The connections between professors and students often continue long after graduation.
“Two artists living now who both went to Lamar may make totally different art from one another, but they connect with one another because they went to Lamar and they studied under these particular artists,” Clay said.
The relationship between former Lamar painting professor Jerry Newman and artist Michael Kennaugh provides another example.
Newman taught painting at Lamar for more than 40 years and influenced students who later developed careers of their own. Kennaugh, one of Newman’s former students, traveled to England while studying and was given an unusual assignment by his professor: photograph English window boxes.
Kennaugh returned with the photographs, which Newman later used as inspiration for an entire body of artwork, one of which is included in “A Legacy of Collecting.”
Today, AMSET’s collection contains works by both artists, allowing visitors to see the connection between teacher and student despite the differences in their artistic styles and mediums.
“You see that genealogy or family tree that sort of begins to form between mentor and protege,” Clay said.
AMSET’s current anniversary exhibition reflects that history by displaying work from several artists who taught at Lamar throughout the decades.
The museum’s role, however, extends beyond preserving the work of past professors.
AMSET continues to provide opportunities for current Lamar faculty and students through exhibitions, artist talks and educational programming.
The relationship between AMSET and Lamar has endured because neither institution operates independently of the larger Southeast Texas art community, Clay said.
“I think it goes back to a desire for collaboration,” she said. “I think this relationship between the museum and the faculty and the university at large is this give and take, back and forth where we are mutually benefiting from one another.
“To be collaborative, you have to be supportive of one another. You have to believe in each other’s missions. You have to believe in the people who are carrying those things out.”
More than 70 years after the Beaumont Art Museum sponsored an art demonstration at Lamar Tech, that support remains visible in the artists, professors and students whose work continues to move between the classroom and gallery walls.
AMSET is located at 500 Main St. in Beaumont. For more, visit amset.org.
