Kansas State University

Field Guide to a Hybrid Landscape: Dana Fritz
2025 Friends of the Beach Museum of Art Gift Print Artist
February 4–August 2, 2025
This exhibition will make visible the forces that shaped what was once the world’s largest hand planted forest, now administered by the Nebraska National Forests and Grasslands. Black and white prints by photographer Dana Fritz reveal the patterns in sand, water, planting, and burning present in this late 19th-century experiment to create a timber industry and change the climate of a semi-arid Nebraska prairie. Fritz is Hixson-Lied Professor of Art at University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Dana Fritz, Fire Tower View, 2021, inkjet print, 16 x 40 in., courtesy of the artist

2025 Gift Print:
Every two years the Friends of the Beach Museum of Art commissions a limited-edition print by a recognized Kansas artist for sale to the public. Kansas State University’s Friends of Art started the gift print program in 1934. Dana Fritz’s Tallgrass Orientation is the 2025 Friends of the Beach Museum of Art Gift Print and will be available for purchase from Feb. 4, 2025. Fritz has written about the work:

Inspired by my 2023 Tallgrass artist residency in the Kansas Flint Hills, I layered compass plant leaves with a topographic map of the area where I collected them. The fingers of their giant leaves point to the poles and orient their flat faces to the east and west sun. Indigenous and settler travelers valued compass plants for orientation in a vast landscape with few large landmarks. I was struck by the resemblance between the shape of the compass plant leaves and the topographic representation of the land around Matfield Green.

For more information about becoming a Friend or purchasing this year’s gift print, please contact the museum at 785-532-7718 or email rlonborg@ksu.edu. Friends of the Beach Museum of Art receive a 25% discount.

Dana Fritz, Tallgrass Orientation, 2024, inkjet print, 16 x 20 in., courtesy of the artist

In Bloom
February 25–August 30, 2025
Join us in celebrating the 150th anniversary of the K-State Gardens with floral selections in the museum’s collection. This exhibition is also our annual collaboration with the Manhattan Public Library’s summer reading program. The American Library Association has chosen the theme “Color Our World,” and we promise a riot of color!

John Steuart Curry, Peonies, 1939, oil on canvas, 15 7/8 x 20 1/4 in., gift of Dr. Daniel Schuster, 1993.1

Enjoy short videos about art in the Beach Museum of Art’s collection. Each video features information about an artwork in the collection, the artist who made it, and the techniques used. Art Bytes are released first Wednesdays on the museum’s social media channels:

Facebook: BeachMuseumofArt
Instagram: @beachmuseum

Enjoy past Art Bytes videos on the museum’s YouTube channel at beach.k-state.edu/videos. Please don’t forget to subscribe, like or share. Thanks!

Screen capture of Art Byte video on Haying by Bernard Joseph Steffen, presented in Spanish by Andrea Fernanda Ramírez Tello.

Visit us online at beach.k-state.edu

Send email to beachart@k-state.edu

Join the museum’s e-news list to stay up to date on everything at the museum.

Check out The Beach Blog for behind-the-scenes information, event info, and guest posts.

Follow us on Instagram | Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to the museum’s YouTube channel to watch videos of art, artists and special programs.

Join the Beach Buddies Facebook Group to enjoy cool art, fun activities and resources for children, families and educators.

Elizabeth Layton, Untitled (business business business, you gotta have art), 1991, Kansas State University, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, 1998.222