Experience the Elisabet Ney Museum’s latest contemporary art exhibition, Breaking the Mold, and enjoy this annual creative event in which the community shares their thoughts and experiences the museum in new dynamic ways through the eyes of artists.

Celebrating the through line between 19th-century art and modern times, the contemporary art programs at the museum activates conversations between artists across the centuries and in collaboration with the historic native Texas landscape.

Breaking the Mold is a group exhibition consisting of art that engages with the life, art, home, and story of Elisabet Ney by Austin contemporary visual artists Beili Liu, Virginia L Montgomery (VLM), and Tammie Rubin. These artists will also kick off a museum educational initiative Breaking the Mold: Mobile Hands-On Art Crates to be deployed in 2025 into Austin elementary schools as a means to share Elisabet’s story with a new generation and with a focus on female empowered artists. These portable classroom kits designed and fabricated by the artists will bring each artist created crates into Austin 4th grade classrooms and engage students with art, history, science and math-based lessons that encourage critical thinking and the creative process.

This project has been funded in part by a grant from the Dorothy C. Radgowski Learning Through Women’s Achievement in the Arts Grant Program, provided through the Where Women Made History and the Historic Artists' Homes and Studios programs of the National Trust for Historic Preservation along with support from the Summerlee Foundation and A3.

On Display During Museum Hours October 12th 2024 – December 15th 2024