LITHOGRAPH BY WILLMAR ARTIST ACCEPTED BY MDA ART COLLECTION

TUCSON, Ariz., Nov. 8, 2001 - A lithograph by Audrey Lee Falk of Willmar, Minn., has been accepted by the Muscular Dystrophy Association's Art Collection. The Collection features artwork by people from across the country with neuromuscular diseases.

"Peachtree City Girls" by Audrey Falk

Falk's "Peachtree City Girls" depicts the artist's granddaughters as children, frolicking in a forest near Peachtree City, Ga. Falk started with a series of photographs, from which she made several drawings in preparation for a graphic arts plein-air show designed to highlight the effects of outdoor light and atmosphere, held in Moscow, Russia.

Two years later, master printer Charles Ringness - a former student of Falk's - printed the final lithograph, which Falk then hand-colored with watercolors.

Falk has facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, which primarily affects the muscles of the face, shoulders and upper arms.

"Peachtree City Girls" is the fifth work by Falk to be accepted into the permanent MDA Collection. Two watercolors, "Tenacious Leaf" and "Knit Work," were accepted in 1997. Two additional watercolors, "Bearing Gifts" and "Tidings of Great Joy," both featured in the 1999 MDA Holiday Wishes card collection, were also donated to the Art Collection.

Falk's work is also housed in various private collections throughout the world, as well as in the permanent collection in the Chagall Museum in Vitebsk, Belarus, Chagall's birthplace.

"We're honored to have yet another wonderfully evocative image by Audrey Lee Falk in the permanent MDA Art Collection," MDA President Robert Ross said. "Her latest contribution to our Collection will undoubtedly delight all who see it as it travels to galleries and museums as part of special exhibits of the Collection."

The new addition by Falk will be exhibited at MDA's national headquarters in Tucson, Ariz., and will be included in MDA Art Collection traveling exhibits. The Collection was established in 1992 to focus attention on the achievements of artists with disabilities, and to emphasize that physical disability is no barrier to creativity.

The permanent Collection currently comprises more than 270 works by artists ages 2 to 82 and represents all 50 states. Each artist is affected by one of the neuromuscular diseases in the MDA program.

Selected art from the Collection has been exhibited at the Dallas Museum of Art; Cork Gallery at Lincoln Center and Forbes Magazine Galleries in New York; Tucson Museum of Art; Bishop Museum in Honolulu; Chicago Public Library, Harold Washington Library Center; Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art; Los Angeles Children's Museum; University of California-Berkeley and Fresno Metropolitan Museum; Duluth Art Institute; Capitol Children's Museum, Washington, D.C.; and the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn, Mich.

MDA is a voluntary health agency working to defeat neuromuscular diseases through programs of worldwide research, comprehensive services, and far-reaching professional and public health education. MDA maintains clinics for area adults and children affected by neuromuscular diseases at the University of Minnesota Hospital in Minneapolis, and at the Mayo Clinic Department of Neurology in Rochester, Minn.

The Association's programs are funded almost entirely by individual private contributors.