By Don Chareunsy
In my first visit to The Rita Deanin Abbey Art Museum in far Northwest Las Vegas, I was blown away by the late artist and UNLV professor’s talent, prolific career and diverse creations in multiple mediums. I especially loved her sculptures, and her 2-year-old museum is absolutely worth a visit for inspiration.
The single-artist Rita Deanin Abbey Art Museum honors a passionate artist who has left a magnificent legacy. The museum opened in 2022 – one year after the artist’s death – and presents a wondrous selection of art created by one woman – Rita Deanin Abbey. In the mid-1980s, Abbey and her husband, Dr. Robert Rock Belliveau, built a home, artist’s studio and sculpture garden on this 10-acre site.
In the 2010s, they undertook the construction of the 10,500-square-foot museum, which today presents a career-spanning exhibition of Abbey’s work in all its variety – from abstract expressionist paintings to figure drawings, enamels, landscapes, stained glass, murals, sculptures and more.
She worked with an enormous range of materials, techniques, styles and themes to create artworks from the delicately small to the multi-ton steel sculptures on view in the sculpture garden. Abbey said, “The infinite wonder of nature has had the greatest influence on my work. I have explored desert landscapes and have been deeply affected by rock formations, vistas, sunsets, rivers and the colors and textures of secret canyons.”
Moving to Las Vegas in 1965, Abbey served as an art professor at UNLV for more than 20 years. She retired from teaching in 1987 and devoted full time to writing and making art, including creating monumental public art installations and participating in solo and group exhibitions worldwide.
Abbey died on March 20, 2021. Belliveau, esteemed pathologist, artist and husband to Rita Deanin Abbey, died on July 3. Our next feature on the museum will focus on the couple and their legacy in Las Vegas.
If You Go
5850 N. Park St., Las Vegas. Open Thursdays-Sundays by appointment; museum memberships available. (702) 658-5097; RitaDeaninAbbeyMuseum.org
