Blaffer Art Museum joins the international art community and the family of Tony Feher in mourning the loss of a great artist and dear friend. “Tony’s poignant and inimitable touch transformed materials and people in equally profound ways. I was fortunate to have worked with him and enjoyed his friendship for as long as I have,” says Blaffer Art Museum Director and Chief Curator Claudia Schmuckli, who curated his 20-year survey in 2012.
Tony Feher marked a pivotal moment in the artist’s career and the museum’s history as it celebrated the reopening of Blaffer after an 18-month renovation. It was our profound honor to share the beauty and power of Tony’s seemingly fragile, yet tenacious work with our Houston community and with audiences in Iowa, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio, where his retrospective traveled to great critical acclaim, celebrated by Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe art critic Sebastian Smee, the New York Times’s Holland Cotter and Artforum’s Wayne Koestenbaum.
In the years after his survey, Tony continued to maintain strong ties with the museum and Houston, exhibit with Hiram Butler Gallery and developing a major commission for the University of Houston’s public art collection. He was a much beloved fixture at the museum, returning many times long after his exhibition had closed, manning the front desk, visiting with staff and visitors, filling the galleries with laughs and scowls as big and generous as his personality. We will miss Tony’s presence in our lives but celebrate his vision and influence, which live on.
Installation view of Tony Feher at Blaffer Art Museum, October 13, 2012 – March 17, 2013. Photo by Iwan Baan.
