To mark its 100th year, Associated Artists of Pittsburgh is presenting bi-monthly pieces spotlighting emerging and established artists and AAP programs. The organization promotes the visual arts in the region and is celebrating an ARTrageous year of art with more than 70 exhibitions in museums, galleries and institutions.

The first Associated Artists of Pittsburgh Annual Exhibition featured traditional landscapes, portraits and still lifes. Today --100 years later-- the exhibition features mixed-media works, sculptures, fiber arts, ceramics, oil paintings, watercolors, photography, videos and more.

Associated Artists of Pittsburgh's 100th Annual at the Carnegie Museum of Art runs Saturday through Sept. 19 and offers something for visitors of every age.

"In the future someone will type 'AAP 100' into a search engine," says juror Al Miner. "I hope the traces they find are as compelling and diverse as this exhibition is today."

Mr. Miner is a curator at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. He and Donald Miller, former art critic for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, selected the 98 works in this year's Annual. Together they considered more than 600 pieces of art submitted by more than 300 artists from the region.

The AAP Annual is the longest running annual exhibition held in a major museum in the United States. The first was affectionately titled "The Popular Salon of the People" because of the support and encouragement the member artists received from the people of Pittsburgh.

Exhibiting artists have included Mary Cassatt, Andy Warhol, John Kane, Philip Pearlstein and Malcolm Parcell among many others. Mr. Pearlstein is returning to Pittsburgh to be a part of the AAP's 100th Annual opening reception. He is known as an educator as well as for his large paintings of realistic, non-idealized, emotionally preoccupied nudes often shown in skewed perspective.

More than 500 professional artists who live within a 150-mile radius of Pittsburgh are part of AAP. They join in a mission that hasn't changed in more than 100 years -- to provide a vital and challenging place for member artists to exhibit new work and to promote the visual arts to the public. Among its many initiatives the AAP offers programs for young art lovers throughout the region.

Young people of every age will find exciting art at AAP's 100th Annual.

Come to AAP's 100th Annual and bring your parents. Show them your favorite piece in the exhibition. The opening reception, which is free, will be held at the Carnegie Museum of Art from 7:30-10 p.m. Friday. For regular museum hours, visit www.cmoa.org.

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