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Menil

Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight

Jan 24 – Jul 13, 2025
Main Building

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.

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

This exhibition is generously supported by Clare Casademont and Michael Metz; Barbara and Michael Gamson; Janet and Paul Hobby; Linda and George Kelly; and the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.