Joe Overstreet Taking Flight - The Menil Collection

Menil

Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight

Jan 24 – Jul 13, 2025

Main Building

Joe Overstreet, HooDoo Mandala, 1970. Acrylic on canvas with metal grommets and cotton rope, 90 × 89 ½ in. (228.6 × 227.3 cm). Neil Lane Collection. © Estate of Joe Overstreet/Artist Rights Society (ARS), courtesy of Eric Firestone Gallery, New York. Photo: Jenny Gorman

Joe Overstreet, Great Mother of All, 1970. Acrylic on canvas with metal grommets and cotton rope, 115 × 195 × 65 in. (292.1 × 495.3 × 165.1 cm) (present installation dimensions). © Estate of Joe Overstreet/Artist Rights Society (ARS), courtesy of Eric Firestone Gallery, New York.

Joe Overstreet, Evolution, 1970. Acrylic on canvas with metal grommets and cotton rope, 115 ½ × 97 in. (293.4 × 246.4 cm). Lent by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Gift of Mary and Bob Mersky. © Estate of Joe Overstreet/Artist Rights Society (ARS), courtesy of Eric Firestone Gallery, New York. Photo: Jenny Gorman

Joe Overstreet, Gorée, 1993. Oil on canvas, 120 × 144 in. (304.8 × 365.8 cm). © Estate of Joe Overstreet/Artist Rights Society (ARS), courtesy of Eric Firestone Gallery, New York.

Joe Overstreet, Free Direction, 1971. Acrylic on canvas with metal grommets and cotton rope, 89 x 131 x 22 ½ in. (226.1 x 332.7 x 57.1 cm) (canvas size). The Menil Collection, Houston. © Estate of Joe Overstreet/Artist Rights Society (ARS), courtesy of Eric Firestone Gallery, New York. Photo: Paul Hester

Joe Overstreet, North Star, 1968. Acrylic on canvas, 93 x 85 x 3 in. (236.2 × 215.9 × 7.6 cm). © Estate of Joe Overstreet/Artist Rights Society (ARS), courtesy of Eric Firestone Gallery, New York.

Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight is the first major museum exhibition in thirty years devoted to the work of this pioneering abstract painter. Renowned for his innovative approach to non-representational painting, American artist Joe Overstreet (1933–2019) consistently sought to intertwine abstraction and social politics.

This presentation will include his landmark Flight Pattern series of radially suspended paintings from the early 1970s, as well as related bodies of work from the 1960s and 1990s. Overstreet made a significant contribution to postwar art, positioning abstraction as an expansive tool for exploring the idea of freedom and the Black experience in the United States.

Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight will be accompanied by an exhibition catalogue with new scholarly texts and installation images from the exhibition, available in late spring.

Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight is organized by Natalie Dupêcher, Associate Curator of Modern Art, The Menil Collection, in collaboration with the artist’s estate.

Major funding for this exhibition is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation; and Franci Neely. Additional support comes from Ellen Benninghoven and Michael Schafer; Clare Casademont and Michael Metz; Barbara and Michael Gamson; Janet and Paul Hobby; Linda and George Kelly; the National Endowment for the Arts; The Oshman Foundation; Mark Wawro and Melanie Gray; and the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.