Exhibitions & Collections – Art Museum of Southeast Texas

Since its inception, the Art Museum of Southeast Texas has offered world class exhibitions to the Southeast Texas community. Currently, the museum hosts four to eight special exhibitions in its main galleries each year, some of which are organized in-house and travel on to other venues. The museum also exhibits four to six local artists each year in its café and rotates out permanent collection artwork in the Lecture Hall and West Hall spaces.

Permanent displays include the Sculpture Garden, featuring the works of Jesús Moroles, George Tobolowsky, Carl Nash, and David Strickland; the Museum Lobby, featuring the works of James Surls, Paul Manes, and George Tobolowsky; and the Felix “Fox” Harris gallery, featuring the folk art totems of Beaumont self-taught artist Felix “Fox” Harris.

AMSET’s exhibitions are regionally focused and spotlight contemporary artists living in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, as well as Early Texas artists, Regional Folk artists, American Folk artists, and Mexican Folk artists. AMSET is one of the earliest museums in the United States to collect artwork by contemporary self-taught artists. AMSET is also home to the John Gaston Fairey Collection of Mexican Folk Art, a collection of over 474 objects donated by John Gaston Fairey in 2017 and 2020.

Notable past exhibitions include shows with James C. Watkins, Keliy Anderson-Staley, Billy Hassell, Francesca Fuchs, David Cargill, Delita Martin, Kana Harada, David McGee, Richard Stout, Keith Carter, and Carlomagno Pedro Martínez.

For more information on current and past exhibitions, contact Caitlin Clay, Curator of Exhibitions, at cclay@amset.org or at 409-832-3432.

The permanent collection of the Art Museum of Southeast Texas consists of nearly 1,700 objects. Artworks within the collection include paintings, collages, textile works, large and small sculptures, drawings, photographs, decorative arts, folk art, and mixed media objects. AMSET began acquiring works in 1950 and continues to add artworks through donations and museum purchases.

Over the past decade, a concentrated effort has been placed on narrowing the focus of the permanent collection to assemble a cohesive but integrated body of artwork. Areas of concentration include 19th – 21st c. modern and contemporary North American and Mexican art with a focus on this region. The permanent collection includes the recently acquired John G. Fairey Collection of Mexican Folk Art, which numbers 474 objects.

View more on the permanent collection here.