Georgia Museum of Art | Exhibitions

The Ring Shows: Then & Now and Putting the Band Back Together
August 23-November 2, 2008

Beginning in 1977, the Jewelry/Metals department at the University of Georgia sponsored three consecutive annual juried exhibitions of rings. Submitted by artists from around the United States, each ring became the property of the department's Phi Beata Heata National Ring Collection.

The exhibitions traveled the country by Greyhound bus, being displayed at museums, university galleries and even a bus terminal locker. Inspired by this important collection, the department recently invited a selected number of these artists involved in the National Ring Shows to create new rings to be shown with their work from the 1970s in a display titled The Ring Show: Then & Now.

The department also celebrated the 30th anniversary of the original collection by organizing a new international juried ring exhibition, Putting the Band Back Together. The Georgia Museum of Art is presenting these two important collections of rings together for the first time.

SPONSORS: Phi Beata Heata, The Lamar Dodd School of Art, the W. Newton Morris Charitable Foundation and the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art.

GALLERY: Martha and Eugene Odum Gallery of Decorative Arts

CURATORS: Ashley Callahan, curator of decorative arts, Georgia Museum of Art
Rob Jackson, associate professor, area chair, Jewelry/Metals, Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia
Mary Hallam Pearse, associate professor, Jewelry/Metals, Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia