Highlighting Established, Up-And-Coming Mid South Artists
The Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas is home to the Irene Rosenzweig Biennial Juried Exhibition.
The prestigious show — funded by an endowment by the notable Pine Bluff resident — is an opportunity for established and up-and-coming artists to gain recognition and earn prizes, and for ASC to grow its Permanent Collection.
The exhibition is open to artists 18 and older in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. Artwork in the following forms are accepted: Paintings, drawings, original prints, fiber art, ceramics, sculpture, photography, digital works and video.
The following prizes are awarded:
The exhibition is supported in part by The Arts & Science Center Endowment Fund and the Irene Rosenzweig Endowment Fund
For questions about the exhibition, please contact Visitor Relations Coordinator Matthew Howard at mhoward@artx3.org.
Eepi Chaad (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist, cultural worker, and naturalist based on the Gulf Coast. She tells stories using textiles, fibers, metals, places, and people. Her practice studies human impacts and lives at the intersection of natural and built environments. Chaad’s work ranges from tiny adornments to large-scale installations to the art of making space and convening people. She has presented and exhibited work internationally and has received numerous grants and awards, including residencies with the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and the City of Houston and, most recently, the BANF Artist Awards. Recent projects include a public art installation in Galveston, Texas, a collaboration with the Houston Grand Opera, and an exhibition at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Chaad intentionally grows her practice through exploration, connection, and a steady exchange of ideas.
Nurturing a role as a cultural worker is also integral to Chaad’s creative practice. She is Artist Services Program Officer with Mid-America Arts Alliance and in community roles including the PrintMatters Houston Board of Directors, the Houston Museum Educators Roundtable Steering Committee, and a peer mentor with Project Row Houses. Chaad has a history of working with community organizations with a focus on education and access, including Art League Houston, Arts Connect Houston, and Artist Boat in Galveston. Chaad believes art is for every community and that creativity is in every human.
Irene Rosenzweig was born in Pine Bluff on July 26, 1903, to Pauline Sarason-Rosenzweig and William M. Rosenzweig. Her father — an immigrant from Lithuania — opened the Good Luck Store (later Rosenzweig’s Department Store) in Pine Bluff. It was the city’s largest mercantile and farm supply store.
Her family home, a Queen Anne Victorian-style at 717 W. Second Ave—now known as the Roth-Rosenzweig-Lambert House—was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
Rosenzweig, who graduated from high school first in her class in 1920, earned an undergraduate degree in classical studies from Washington University in St. Louis.
She earned a doctoral degree from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. The American Academy in Rome awarded Rosenzweig the 1930 Prix de Rome Fellowship in Classical Studies and Archaeology. During her time as a fellow in Rome, she advanced research for her dissertation—published in 1937 as Ritual and Cults of Pre-Roman Iguvium: With an Appendix Giving the Text of Iguvine Tablets.
Afterward, Rosenzweig tutored President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s family members during their time in the White House. Rosenzweig also taught Latin at the Madeira school, a private preparatory school for girls, in Virginia.
She was fluent in French, German, Spanish, Latin, and Greek.
The Rosenzweig juried show has a long history with The Arts & Science Center, beginning with a gift from the Irene Rosenzweig Foundation in 1992. Rosenzweig died at age 94 on October 8, 1997, in Pine Bluff. She left a gift to ASC, the Irene Rosenzweig Endowment Fund, which supports the exhibition in her name and includes purchase awards for the center’s Permanent Collection.
