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Heard Museum Presents Retha Walden Gambaro. Attitudes of Prayer

The Heard Museum museum presents Retha Walden Gambaro. Attitudes of Prayer on view through May 13, 2012.

Experience the power of contemplation and meditation through the compelling sculpture of Creek artist Retha Walden Gambaro. This award-winning sculptor did not begin her stellar career until age 52, yet she has captured the hearts of collectors and institutions up and down the East Coast. This is believed to be the first exhibit for Gambaro west of the Mississippi.

Gambaro was born in Oklahoma and grew up in Arizona. After moving to Washington, D.C., Gambaro and her husband Stephen owned and operated a very successful art gallery on Capitol Hill, which provided the venue to introduce many American Indian artists to the region. She was also the president of the Amerindian Circle at the Smithsonian Institution, which led the effort to create the National Museum of the American Indian. Gambaro chaired a star-studded gala at the Kennedy Center, which was the kick-off of the fundraising effort for NMAI.

Gambaro works in stone, transferring her work into bronze through the lost-wax process. Her evocative work has won her numerous awards, including the Take Pride in America Award, awarded by the State of Virginia for her exhibit Where Legends Live: Showcase of Native American Art, and Best of Show awards at art events including the Art League of Northern Virginia.

She has also been commissioned to create sculptures for the Washington, D.C. Convention Center, the International Franchise Foundation in Hawaii, Howard University and the city of Bedford, Virginia. Gambaro has also exhibited in such diverse venues as the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts in Hagerstown, Maryland, the Yah-Ta-hey Gallery in New London, Connecticut, and the Slater Museum in Norwich, Connecticut.

This event also marks the grand opening of the museum’s new Nichols Sculpture Garden, which replaces the HOME garden. This new space will create an outdoor exhibit gallery while preserving the spirit of the garden atmosphere with native trees and the wonderful ambience of the Heard Museum campus. – www.heard.org

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