Dance, Indian Images Share Stowitts Space.

IN 1984, a group of admirers of H.J. Stowitts joined with biographer Anne Holiday and formed The Stowitts Society. The mission of the group was to search and rescue original works of art by Stowitts consigned to obscurity since his death in 1953. Many of the paintings languished in museum storage; others were tracked to private collections throughout the U.S. and Europe. In 1985, thirty-five original paintings from the artist's "Vanishing India" collection (originally comprising 150 works on canvas) were recovered, catalogued, and photographed. The paintings were organized by the group for a travelling exhibition entitled "The Heritage of India" and first exhibited at the Monterey (CA) Museum of Art in the fall of 1985. The exhibit traveled to the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History in 1986 under the auspices of the National Festival of India. Stowitts was the only American artist whose works were included in the yearlong festival sponsored by the U.S. State Department.

The Stowitts Society appointed an executive committee in 1993 to explore the founding of a new permanent museum in Pacific Grove on the Monterey peninsula on the central coast of California. The Stowitts Museum and Library elected a board of directors, received 501c3 nonprofit status and opened to the public in 1994. The founders donated original paintings, drawings, photographs, archives, and books forming the core of the permanent collection and research library.

The inaugural exhibition, "Theatrical Splendor in An Ancient Court of China," opened in the summer of 1994 and traveled to the San Francisco Performing Arts Library & Museum to commemorate the city's opera season. The Stowitts Museum has since organized four exhibitions annually, including "The Golden Age of the Ballet Russes," "Vanishing India," "Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers," "The Royal Theater Arts of Java," "Nijinsky Dancing," and "Dance in Photography." A major survey of theatrical paintings, sculpture, and prints by Stowitts entitled "Archaism in Jazz Age Asia" will be on exhibition through April 15, 2000 and focuses on performance art with origins in China, Russia, India, and Indonesia.

In 1998 the Stowitts Museum inaugurated a Dance History White Papers series with the publication of a Nijinsky bibliography by Daniel J. Gesmer, followed by the late Nancy Van Norman Baer's acclaimed monograph, The Appropriation of the Feminine: Androgyny in the Early Ballet Russes. Most recently the museum published Tirza True Latimer's groundbreaking monograph: A Skirted Issue : Diaghilev's Sexual Orientation.

In May 2000, the Stowitts Museum presents the world premiere of "Mandalas of the Hidden Wisdom: The Cosmos According to Stowitts." A catalogue for the exhibition includes a biographical essay on the artist by Anne Holiday with primary text by guest curator J. Joseph Dunaway. The catalogue includes rare photographs from the permanent collection and full color plates of paintings and drawings.

Exhibition, programs, and publication information is available on the museum web site at www.stowitts.org or at [phone].