What are the opening hours?

Wednesday 12pm - 5pm Thursday 12pm - 5pm Friday 12pm - 5pm Saturday 12pm - 5pm

Koelsch gallery

Home
United States
Houston, TX
Koelsch gallery

outsider, folk, self-taught, visionary art, and visual storytelling since 1994.

05/23/2026

Darden Smith — Artist Talk & Live Musical Performance
“The Sky is Bluer Than You Think”
Saturday, May 30th, 4:00 - 6:00 pm

koelsch gallery is pleased to announce an artist talk and live musical performance by Darden Smith on Saturday, May 30th, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. In honor of the closing of his latest exhibition, “The Sky is Bluer Than You Think”, Smith will perform songs from his multi-media project Western Skies and discuss his experience as both a self-taught artist and musician. Attendees are encouraged to ask questions and participate at their choosing. As always, admission is free.

Visit koelschgallery.com by clicking the link in our bio to see all of Darden’s available works

Featured works are from Smith’s body of work, A Common Prayer (2024 – 2025), a series of mixed-media works created with gouache, graphite, marker, pen, and soil collected from the artist’s travels in Telingua, Texas. At times, the works are accompanied by quotes from conversations overheard or Smith’s personal writings. Recurring motifs of flora and greenery reflect early childhood encounters with nature, experienced in his mother’s elaborate gardens and memories of wading through the tall grasses of the Texas landscape. In A Common Prayer, the artist’s reverence for the natural world is felt through his immortalization of fleeting moments and memory.

05/15/2026

Come find us at the Affordable Art Fair at Booth E3!
May 14 - 17, 2026
Palmer Events Center, 900 Barton Springs Rd, Austin, TX 78704

Thursday, May 14
Private view: 6pm – 10pm

Friday, May 15
General admission: 12pm – 5pm
Art After Hours: 5pm – 8pm

Saturday, May 16
General admission: 11am – 5pm
Family Hours: 11am – 1pm
Art After Hours: 5pm – 8pm

Sunday, May 17
General admission: 11am – 6:30pm
Family Hours: 11am – 1pm

05/13/2026

Affordable Art Fair, Austin | koelsch gallery: Booth E3
Palmer Events Center, 900 Barton Springs Rd, Austin, TX 78704

koelsch gallery returns to Austin, Texas, for for the third edition of the Affordable Art Fair, Austin! We will be showcasing contemporary works alongside more than 55 local and international galleries. All artworks are priced between $100 and $12,000 and represent both established and emerging artists. In addition to general admission, the fair feaetures late evening programming on Friday and Saturday, as well as family activities on weekend mornings. Our booth will feature works from artists Lance Letscher, Kelly Moran, Carlos Hernandez, Nancy Josephson, Geoff Winningham, Melinda Buie, Gail Siptak, and Jeff Wheeler.

Geoff Winningham, Lamé Pants (1972)

05/11/2026

Happy Mother’s Day 💜

Today we share work from Catherine Colangelo, a mother and artist whose paintings serve as protective shields for her daughter. Colangelo’s works are deeply influenced by illuminated manuscripts, Indian and Islamic miniatures, textiles, universal imagery, and visionary art. As her child grew older, she began to explore the practice of talismans, and using art to ward off evil. Her work explores the complex relationship between mother and child, and the desire to protect a loved one from afar. “The use of symmetrical design is almost universal in my work. Trying to create balance is an eternal goal, in my art as in my life”.

05/04/2026

Installation photos of Gail Siptak and Elana Wortham’s mural, The Magic Flute, based on the final opera of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The mural was completed on the third floor of a home in Houston’s River Oaks neighborhood, for the owner favorited the opera and requested the mural for his grandchildren. These photographs are from over 15 years ago, around the time of its completion.

04/22/2026

A big thank you to everyone who joined us over the weekend for the opening reception of Darden Smith’s latest exhibition, “The Sky is Bluer Than you Think”. Attendees got to experience a live performance from Smith, featuring songs from his multi-media project, Western Skies.

“The Sky is Bluer Than You Think” is on display until May 30th, 2026. Visit koelschgallery.com or click the link to see all of Darden’s available works.

1020 Peden St. Houston, Tx 77006

04/18/2026

Today! Join us for the Opening Reception of Darden Smith’s “The Sky is Bluer Than You Think”, from 5:00 - 8:00 pm, in addition to a live musical performance by the artist from his multi-media project, “Western Skies”.

The featured work, “Riot #10” is apart of Smith’s series, “Riot”. The collection is comprised of lithographic mono-prints, produced in collaboration with Austin’s Flatbed Center for Contemporary Printmaking. Inspired by his encounters with flowers found across the streets of Rome, the works speak to the artist’s beliefs that hidden stories exist all spring us — visible only when we take the time to see them. The lithographic surface depicts the pavement of the city’s historical streets and alleyways, paved with small, black, cube-shaped basalt stones known as sampietrini. Through a process known as chine collé, Smith transferred the color and texture of flower petals by ‘sandwiching’ thin pieces of paper between his printing block and canvas.

1020 Peden St. Houston, Texas 77006

04/12/2026

Darden Smith “The Sky is Bluer Than You Think”
April 18 - May 30, 2026
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 18th, 5:00 - 8:00 pm

Darden Smith returns to the city of Houston for his latest exhibition, “The Sky is Bluer Than You Think”. Join us for an opening reception on Saturday, April 18th from 5:00 to 8:00 pm. As always, admission is free.

In his koelsch gallery debut, self-taught artist Darden Smith brings together a collection of drawings, paintings, and lithographs from three bodies of work: Western Skies, Riot, and A Common Prayer. Through his featured works, Smith brings us in tune with the subtle rhythms and recurring forms of everyday life. Whether passing through the windy expanse of the Texas landscape or wandering the cobblestone streets of Rome, a rhythm emerges among the pulses of vibrant flora and ripples of bowing tallgrass. The artist refers to these phenomena as “rhythmic dissonance”, something he has struggled to find within music. Widely recognized for his decades-long career as a songwriter and musician, Smith first began sharing his visual art in 2018. Since then, his multi-disciplinary practice — encompassing songwriting, essays, and performance — has expanded to include printmaking, illustration, drawing, photography, and painting. “The Sky is Bluer Than You Think” traces his evolution as a visual artist and its relevance to his lifelong commitment to storytelling.

1020 Peden St. Houston, Texas 77006

04/03/2026

Artist Talk with Geoff Winningham
2:00 pm | Saturday, April 4th

On Saturday, April 4th, koelsch gallery will host an artist talk with Geoff Winningham in conversation with Franny Koelsch in honor of the photographer’s latest exhibition, Discoveries: Photographs from 1970 - 2024. Winningham and Koelsch will begin the discussion at 2:00 pm, followed by a Q&A. Attendees are encouraged to ask questions and participate at their choosing. Join us for an engaging discussion between two important figures of the Houston art scene, as well as the final viewing of Discoveries. As always, admission is free.

In a sweeping retrospective spanning five decades, Geoff Winningham presents over 50 photographs from across his career. From his seminal black-and-white photographs of professional wrestling in Houston to demolition derbies and vibrant Mexican fiestas, Winningham’s work has documented a wide range of social, cultural, geographical, and historical phenomena. Though curated in a non-chronological order, the exhibition reveals a continuity of celebration and social ritual found within the “distant neighbors” of Texas and Mexico - two places Winningham has had the pleasure of photographing and calling home. Together, this collection of work offers a record of cultural history and a reflection of the photographer’s own lived experiences. This is a corresponding exhibit to Winningham’s larger exhibition, Discoveries: Photographs by Geoff Winningham, Texas and Mexico 1970-2024, at The Witliff Collections of Texas State University, in San Marcos.

03/22/2026

Sally S. Bennett, Short Story Long (2025)
Mixed media; found paper and acrylic on vintage window shutter.
33 x 31 in.

“My creative approach is a blend of spontaneity and obsessive attention to detail. The combination of paint, scattered words, patterns, collages, and memorabilia are all the perfect vehicles for the work to express its crazy perspective on life. My art comes out of life itself, and like our lives – it is not a quick read. I want my work to engage the viewer; to provoke them to see and feel the beauty and humor that is around us everywhere. I let the painting guide me. I am the spectator wanting to see something I have never seen before. I use anything I can find: old, new, and everything in between. The collage reflects reality – it is straightforward. The patterns surround us and the words speak to us, the memorabilia brings us back to the essentials. All of these tools help me begin and complete the story from the old and forgotten to something new and now.
For me, it is a strong lesson in letting go: a way of tearing apart paintings and reassembling them, a way of freeing myself of self imposed systems and confining structures, and trusting that the paintings will start a new beginning once woven back together. The reconstruction series started out as a new way to mix patterns, color, and creativity – weaving became potential for concealment – a moment for privacy, a personal discovery to open up my imagination, a peaceful chance to organize the chaos around me. To me, patterns are the mystery of art, for the new works reveal secrets of a whole other painting that is the past and gone forever.”

Address

1020 Peden Street
Houston, TX
77006

Opening Hours

Wednesday	12pm - 5pm
Thursday	12pm - 5pm
Friday	12pm - 5pm
Saturday	12pm - 5pm

Telephone

+17138625744

Website

http://www.koelschgallery.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Koelsch gallery posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Museum

Send a message to Koelsch gallery:

Shortcuts

Address
Telephone
Opening Hours
Alerts
Contact The Museum
Claim ownership or report listing

Want your museum to be the top-listed Museum in Houston?