Robert Stackhouse: Passages

May 6, 2022 - January 7, 2023

at Belger Arts Center
2100 Walnut Street, Kansas City, MO 64108

Passages includes more than 40 sculptures, prints, paintings, and drawings by Robert Stackhouse, all from the Belger Collection.

Stackhouse was born in Bronxville, NY, in 1942, and moved to Florida as a teenager. He was one of the first students enrolled at the University of South Florida and graduated with a degree in studio art in 1965. He later earned an MFA from the University of Maryland.

His two-dimensional artwork often documents large-scale outdoor sculptures that were created with his students and volunteers. Many of them were of a scale where visitors could enter and pass through the installations. Often A-frame wooden structures, the sculptures were literal passageways through art. Frequent imagery in Stackhouse’s output includes boats and ships (reflecting earthly and spiritual passages) and snakes (symbolic of regeneration and death).  He was also especially intrigued with the process of a snake shedding its skin and slithering away afresh. 

Early in his career Stackhouse maintained an active studio in New York City, while commuting to Washington, D.C., to teach at the Corcoran School of Art, and working on outdoor sculpture events throughout the country. In the mid-1990s he moved to Kansas City, teaching at the Kansas City Art Institute, continuing to create outdoor installations locally.  Stackhouse and his wife and collaborator, Carol Mickett, have resided in the Tampa area for two decades. They continue to work on national public installation projects involving volunteers during the fabrication and installation process.