By DENNIS ORERE
The US ambassador to Papua New Guinea Leslie Rowe invited the media on a personal tour of the “Art in Embassies” collection at her residence in Port Moresby on yesterday.
The “Art in Embassies” exhibition featured New Guinea landscape, study for New Guinea landscape one and study for New Guinea landscape two, by a former US soldier Anthony Soppelsa, who remarkably completed them while stationed near Nadzab in Morobe province during World War II.
It also featured Supermarket Flora, a work by the great painter Jacob Lawrence, one of America’s most famous African-American artists, and works by photographer Nancy Rowe the ambassador’s sister.
Others included photographs, glass artwork, sculpture work and paintings by American artists like Susan Turner (photographer), Michelle Westmorland, Caroline Mytinger and Leonard Agronsky (painter and sculptor).
The “Art in Embassies” programme was established by the United States Department of State in 1964 and is a global museum that exhibits original works of art by US citizens in public rooms of about 180 American diplomatic residences worldwide.
The exhibitions provide international audiences with a sense of the quality, scope and diversity of American art and culture through the accomplishments of American artists.
Members of the media present during the tour included representatives from EM TV, The National, Post-Courier and PNG FM.
Ms Rowe said she had chosen art to be shared with Papua New Guineans and would welcome interested individuals, groups or schools who wanted to tour the exhibition at her residence at Touaguba Hill.