Art Pick: “Mentoring a Muse”

Multidimensional: Farrah Fawcett’s Little-Known Sculpting Career

_{“Mentoring a Muse” | February 16 – August 20
Umlauf Sculpture Garden, 605 Robert E. Lee Road}

by Brittani Sonnenberg

During her lifetime, Farrah Fawcett was perhaps most famous for her figure, but a new exhibition at the Umlauf Sculpture Garden, “Mentoring a Muse,” reveals another side of the actress: as a figurative sculptress.

Fawcett studied art at the University of Texas from 1965-1968, where she met Charles Umlauf, who exerted a profound influence over her sculpting style. Fawcett, in turn, became a muse for Umlauf. In Hollywood, Fawcett continued to sculpt, and the two remained in close contact and collected each other’s work.

The Umlauf’s exhibition features 30 objects from Fawcett’s personal art collection, which was bequeathed to the Blanton when Fawcett passed away in 2009. “Every single object was a surprise, partly because we knew so little about Farrah’s own artmaking,” said Katie Robinson Edwards, curator at the Umlauf.“I was astonished at how skilled Farrah was inthe 1960s and impressed that she kept it up her entire life.” It’s an important reminder that at least one of Charlie’s Angels had a vibrant inner world that Charlie, and the rest of America, knew nothing about.

Who knows? Maybe Britney Spears has a studio of impressionist oil paintings hidden away that would rival Monet’s water lilies.