Sketches

VAVRA Triptych. This is only the second time in its history that the Kirkland Museum has squeezed a show into its jam-packed galleries. In two of the museum's principal rooms, director Hugh Grant installed paintings by renowned Denver painter Frank Vavra, his wife, painter Kathleen Huffman Vavra, and their daughter, Diana Vavra, who made sculptures, prints and mosaics. Because the Kirkland has no specifically dedicated space to present the show, the Vavra works are displayed among the ceramics, glass, furniture, sculptures and paintings by others in the permanent collection. Frank Vavra embraced many styles over his half-century-long career, but two stand out: impressionism during the 1920s, and abstract surrealism in the '40s and '50s. Kathleen Huffman Vavra's work of the '20s and '30s, mostly in the form of regionalist watercolors, is extremely nice, and some were actually shown at the Denver Art Museum in a solo she had there. Finally, there are pieces in various mediums by Diana Vavra dating from the '50s to the '70s. Through September 10 at the Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Art, 1311 Pearl Street, 303-832-8576. Reviewed July 20.