Selections from the collection of The Late Katharine W. Osborne
Selections from the collection of The Late Katharine W. Osborne will be on view in the Osborne and Woodson galleries. As most who are familiar with this museum will know, Katharine Osborne was a longtime patron, generous donor, and loyal friend of the Waterworks. In fact a large number of the pieces included in the show were purchased from the Waterworks over many years. At the time of her unfortunate passing in 2008, Mrs. Osborne’s collection held over one hundred fifty unique works of art, and her children were generous enough to loan them to this exhibition so that the community might have a window into her tastes and her interests.
Katharine Osborne was an artist herself and like all of the best collectors, she acquired artwork not because it was a good investment or because everybody around her was buying similar things. She used her keen visual sense and well-developed taste to select works that she actually liked and admired. The resulting collection is a fascinating window into several decades of artistic endeavor. The works that make up the collection and the exhibition come from internationally established artists and from local craftsmen and everything between. A Dale Chihuly glass piece glimmers near a small painting by local legend Clara Childs, and a cluster of ceramic vessels and wood sculptures hover underneath a large canvas by Philip Moose, a globally renowned landscape painter. Some of the artworks clearly belong to a time and place, such as Kathleen Jardine’s sardonic 1985 watercolor “Self-Portrait with Begged Question: Where Do Men Come From?” Others seem as if they could have been made either a hundred years ago or five years ago. But all of the pieces have in common the fact that they struck Mrs. Osborne’s fancy enough to become part of her collection, and that notion in itself provides an interesting point of view for audiences, not only to the works but to the ideas and feelings of Mrs. Osborne.
A museum like the Waterworks Visual Arts Center cannot survive without patrons like Katharine Osborne, who not only donate time, energy and money tirelessly year after year, but who also become patrons and advocates of the exhibiting artists. In return, the Waterworks strives to provide its community with a challenging art experience that combines education, enrichment and enjoyment. This symbiosis is a wonderful thing when it is achieved, and Mrs. Osborne embodied this partnership at its very best. Her memory will always be cherished by the Waterworks community.
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