• Jay and Victoria Wehnert Collection & House

    Houston Texas

     

     

  • Jay and Victoria as Collecting Collaborators

    Our collection is the result of a mutually shared vision based on our individual experiences that has now spanned four decades. Each of us contributes our own perspectives on the art that come together in creating meaning in the collection, as well as in the home and life we share.


    Jay is more the researcher, historian and documentarian of the art and artists. He has guided the collection forward with his curatorial and writing efforts. Victoria's unique professional and personal focus on family and history brings a deeper understanding of the artists, their lives, and their relationship to the world. Her keen sense of design is the basis for presenting the art in a visually sophisticated manner, so that works by diverse artists relate to each other through thoughtful groupings and sightlines that reveal shared inspirations, themes, colors and textures.

    Our collecting has been the basis for shared adventures, discoveries and seeking the unexpected. It has been a source of ongoing learning and intellectual pursuit. Those collecting experiences have allowed us to build something special together. We have been able to be intimately engaged with artists and connected to their art in profound ways.

  • Why Collect, Why Share It

    It all starts with the art and the artists. What is it about them and their creations that attract  and compel? These artists have a capacity to connect to essential aspects of their relationship to the world and to capture that in their work, and then have that resonate with the viewer. What they communicate reaches you. Visitors to our home often comment on how the house and collection makes them "feel", that they experience an "energy" or a spirituality within it. I think this comes from qualities contained in each individual piece of art that are then amplified in the context of a collection. This is then experienced in the context of a domestic space, a place made personal and intimate.

    I think that the art is so fundamentally connected to these artists' inner lives, that perhaps by having it in our home, they live together here with us. The house is infused with them. That is part of what we want to preserve and extend to others. We have felt it and seen it in others.

  • A House Museum: What and Why

    By its very nature, our collection of art brut, outsider and self-taught art is unique. Created by artists working at a far remove from the conventional cultural art world, it is an extraordinary array of art and often anonymous objects, brought together in a our own personal way. It is all housed in a Victorian Farmhouse in the Houston Heights built in 1897.

    Instead of de accessioning the collection as our estate, our desire is to preserve this historic house and the collection it holds. We hope to leave it for others to discover, experience and benefit from it as we have.

    Its practical purpose would be to establish an arts resource for the community of Houston and beyond. It would provide educational and arts/cultural programming centered around a fascinating genre of art. Scholarship, research, and institutional partnerships would be possible.  Also, the stewardship of an historical home would be ensured.

  • Jay Wehnert is a collector, writer, curator and collaborator based in Houston, Texas. He and his wife, Victoria began collecting...

    Jay Wehnert is a collector, writer, curator and collaborator based in Houston, Texas. He and his wife, Victoria began collecting outsider and self-taught art in the mid-1980âs and continue to have a lively collecting interest into the present. They welcome guests and tours to share their home.

    Jay's collecting interests in outsider, visionary and self-taught art have fed an ever-increasing curiosity in these artists, their lives and work. He began informally working with some artists, including Paul Darmafall, The Baltimore Glassman and developed collaborations with galleries to present his, and others' art. Jay began curating exhibitions locally in Houston and regionally through Texas. Writing projects in the form of exhibition essays and arts magazine articles followed. In 2011, Jay launched his own arts initiative, Intuitive Eye, which has expanded his efforts to present the art that fascinates him. Since then he has curated and consulted on numerous exhibitions, most recently presenting Lone Stars, A Celebration of Texas Culture and Art with Webb Gallery.

    He has presented on the subject of outsider art to Texas audiences, and following one such talk was invited by Texas A&M University Press to write a book on the subject. The resulting book, Outsider Art in Texas: Lone Stars was published in April of 2018. In 2019, Jay will be curating and writing about Texas self-taught art for the exhibition, The Art of Texas: 250 Years, organized by the Witte Museum and Texas Christian University. 

  • Development of the property and project can include

    -the house and collection open to the public as a home museum

    -space for meetings, educational programming, and events in the community

    -a research center and archive

    -an artist's residency/studio to foster engagement within the arts community

    -property large enough to support outdoor events.