The exhibition is a visual exploration in drawings and monotypes of the lives of two legendary musicians: the 19th-century violinist and guitarist Nicolo Paganini and his 20th-century counterpart, blues guitar legend Robert Johnson. Though their lives were divided by a century, both shared a restless intellectual and emotional urge to master their instruments and, according to legend, sold their souls to the devil to achieve perfection.

Opening Saturday in the second floor Lewis Gallery, the exhibition features recent acquisitions and important works on paper from the Figge collection portraying rural and urban America during the first half of the 20th century.

Living Proof Exhibit: Cancer Survivor Art will open on Saturday, September 10 at the Figge Art Museum in the second floor Mary Waterman Gildehaus Community Gallery. An Opening Reception will take place on Thursday, September 8 beginning at 5:30 p.m.

Families will be invited to make storyboard scenes, create the yellow brick road on the plaza with chalk, explore the art cart in the Haitian gallery, participate in a twirling tornado activity, make a night-time on the prairie art project, try a Tin Man activity or experience a David Plowden gallery search. Guests can also pop into the auditorium for a selection of Oz-themed documentaries and animated shorts.

The exhibition will include more than 70 images that carefully follow Plowden’s exploration of the medium’s 20th century evolution, from a modern vision of the sublime to a postmodern obsession with an increasingly urbanized landscape. Even in the presence of suburban sprawl, the exhibition will display how Plowden manages to capture a kind of beauty in the landscape that the passerby might overlook.

Drawn from the largest collection of materials relating to The Wizard of Oz stories and characters, the exhibition will feature 110 objects, from the finest known copy of the first edition/first state “green imprint” of Baum and Denslow’s 1900 book, to original sketches, costumes and props from MGM’s beloved 1939 movie starring Judy Garland, to Oz spinoffs such as puppets, toys and posters from numerous other productions like “Wicked” and “The Wiz.”

The exhibition features six artists living in the Midwest Region including photographers Terry Evans, Jin Lee, Randy Richmond and Radim Schreiber, botanical artist George Olson, and fiber sculptor Mary Merkel-Hess. Their work explores the biodiversity and unique beauty of the endangered tallgrass prairie that stretched from Texas to Canada 150 years ago, covering millions of acres of land. Today less than four percent of tallgrass prairie survives in isolated patches.

Art Museum Day celebrates the value of the visual arts and the important role art museums play in their communities. Visitors are encouraged to share their experiences on Art Museum Day via social media, with the hashtag #ArtMuseumDay.

What originally began as a Sunday morning sketch group in the 1950s has turned into a small but mighty organization dedicated to promoting the arts in the Quad Cities. Since its inception in 1953, the Beaux Arts Fund Committee (BAFC) has contributed $600,000 to the Figge and its predecessors, with the majority of the funds coming from two outdoor fairs each year.

The Figge Art Museum will be offering free admission all day for Free Family Day on Saturday, sponsored by the Quad-City Times.

Beginning Tuesday the Mississippi Valley Quilters Guild (MVQG) will return to the Figge Art Museum for the Quilters’ Favorites exhibition.

Featured schools include North Scott, Geneseo, Moline, Muscatine, Davenport, Bettendorf and Pleasant Valley. Each school district has their own selection process to choose the top works of art to represent their district in this museum-school partnership.

Chargrilled spicy-citrus alligator ribs, squealer pies, Cajun fish tacos, shrimp gumbo arancini, beignets with salted mocha Chantilly cream, fried oysters with brie and jalapeno-braised pork belly on cheddar grits are just a few of the dishes you can sample at this year’s Rajun Cajun Food Fest at the Figge Art Museum on Fat Tuesday, February 9!

This juried guild exhibition was open to artists within a 150-mile radius of the Quad Cities and each artist was encouraged to enter up to two original works of art that must have been created in the last five years. A total of 44 artists were selected by juror Julie Rodrigues Widholm, the director of DePaul Art Museum in Chicago. The selected works will be on view in the fourth floor gallery through May 15, 2016.

Donated in 1929 by Dr. Clarence T. Lindley, the cameo and intaglio gems reflect the changing ideas and prominent beliefs of society and became a popular fashion accessory in the Victorian Era.