OKLAHOMA CITY (April 1, 2026) — Paul Reed: A Retrospective will close at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art (OKCMOA) on Sunday, April 12. The closing weekend coincides with the Museum’s seventh annual Art in Bloom fundraiser, an appropriate cap as both the exhibition and Art in Bloom are celebrations of bold, prismatic color in the Museum’s dynamic galleries.
Paul Reed: A Retrospective is guest curated by David Gariff, PhD, senior lecturer at the National Gallery of Art, and consists of over one hundred works, several of which are large-scale paintings. The exhibition showcases the life and career of an artist whose contributions to both abstract art and Washington, D.C.’s art scene have gone largely overlooked.
The exhibition presents a chronological survey of Reed’s art and accomplishments from his early days as a graphic designer, to his success as one of the founding artists of the Washington Color School in the 1960s, to the innovations of his later work. The checklist is drawn primarily from OKCMOA’s permanent collection, with additional loans from important museum and private collections. The exhibition catalog, published by Marquand Books, is available now from the Museum Store at okcmoa.com/store.
“After nearly a decade of work on this exhibition, we are proud to share it with the world and encourage anyone who hasn’t yet seen it to do so before it closes,” said OKCMOA President and CEO Michael Anderson, PhD.
After Paul Reed: A Retrospective closes, it will travel to the Mary M. Torggler Fine Arts Center in Newport News, Virginia, where it will open on June 5. The Legacy of the Washington Color School will also close on April 12. Remaining open are Postwar Abstraction, Dale Chihuly: The Oklahoma Collection, and the second-floor permanent collection galleries, which feature refreshed Storytelling in Art and Landscape Painting installations as well as loans from Art Bridges.
On June 20, the Museum will open its summer exhibition, The Sense of Beauty: Six Centuries of Painting from the Museo de Arte de Ponce, featuring the iconic painting Flaming June by Sir Frederic Leighton. For more information on what’s on view and upcoming, please visit okcmoa.com/art.
Museum members receive free entry to all exhibitions as well as Art in Bloom. For more information, please visit okcmoa.com/membership.
