Newsletter
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
ART GALLERIES
Margaret Bourke-White
Moments in History 1930-1945 SUMMER/FALL 2014 What’s Inside: 3 Notes from the Director 5 Tammy Renée Brackett: Deer Dear 7 On the Road with the Traveling Exhibition Program
10 The Real Thing: Samuel Gorovitz 12 Dancing Atoms: The Photographs of Barbara Morgan 13 Remembering Dr. Alfred Collette
Exhibition/Education/Collection Syracuse University Art Galleries/Shaffer Art Building /Syracuse Ne w York 13244
suart.syr.edu
FEATURED/EXHIBITION
Margaret Bourke-White, [Women working in the field, Kostolná, (Slovakia), Czechoslovakia, 1938]. Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries © Estate of Margaret Bourke-White/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Margaret Bourke-White Moments in History 1930-1945 August 19 – October 19, 2014
Gallery RECEPTION
Thursday, September 4, 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. The Syracuse University Art Galleries is pleased to present Margaret Bourke-White: Moments in History 1930-1945, an exhibition of over 180 vintage photographs taken in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Germany, England and Italy in the 1930s and 40s. Also featured are original Life and Fortune magazines and correspondence related to Bourke-White’s photography and projects. A complement to the exhibition, Context: Reading the Photography of Margaret Bourke-White will be presented at the Special Collections Research Center, also opening August 19th. This exhibition is a co-production of the Hague Museum of Photography, La Fábrica (Spain), Martin-Gropius-Bau (Germany), Preus-Museum (Norway), and Syracuse University Libraries (United States). The Syracuse University Art Galleries is the closing venue for this monumental exhibition that has toured throughout Europe for the past two years.
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NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR Art during the 20th century experienced unprecedented growth. This took place not only in Europe and America, but also around the globe. Early in the century artists experimented with color, forms, the reality of a 2-dimensional canvas, emotions, varied subject matter, and all sorts of other issues that were considered inappropriate or irrelevant during early periods. Post-industrialized countries had better educated populations, there was a wider distribution of income, and leisure activities included theater, music Domenic Iacono, Director
and art appreciation.
Margaret Bourke-White [Aluminum rods, Aluminum Company of America, ca. 1930]. Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries © Estate of Margaret Bourke-White/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Women were an important part of this development. They
to specific themes she found intriguing, America 1930-51,
often led the way tearing down boundaries and opening
Germany 1930-32, Soviet Union 1930-32, Czechoslovakia, Soviet
new avenues of opportunities. It was not an easy task, the
Union 1941, and World War II. In her introductory essay to
challenges were great- still are- but the prospects of having
the exhibition Ms. Rubio commented that Margaret Bourke-
an impact on the history and evolution of art were reward
White had been recognized for a series of achievements and
enough. This year, the SUArt Galleries is celebrating the role of
important activities- “She was the first woman to photograph
women in 20th century art. You may remember we presented
the steel mills; the first to belong to the team of photographers
the exhibition Mithila Painting: The Evolution of an Art Form
for Fortune and Life magazines; the first foreigner to photograph
last winter that investigated contemporary trends in an art
the Soviet Union in 1930; the first female photographer to work
form created by Indian women. Through their paintings these
for the U.S. Air Force; the only foreign photographer—man or
women were documenting traditions, commenting on injustices
woman—present in Moscow when the first German bombs
in their society, and promoting a more active role for women in
fell on the city on July 19, 1941, right after the war between
the arts. The 20th century is replete with examples of women in
Russia and Germany began; and the first woman to go along
Europe and America accepting similar challenges.
on a bombing mission, in 1943, at a time when women were not allowed in combat zones.” These ‘firsts’ would have been
We begin the year with Margaret Bourke-White: Moments
significant, not only because of gender, but because these were
in History, an examination of art by one of America’s most
important moments in 20th century history. I can only imagine
important photographers. Oliva Mariá Rubio, artistic director of
that anyone traveling as a spectator on a bombing mission in
the Madrid, Spain museum La Fabrica, curated the exhibition.
1943 would have stood out from the crowd.
The photographs, mostly from Syracuse University’s Special Collections at Bird Library, were on tour at four European
As with all our exhibitions, there will be a series of lectures
museums over the last 18 months, including the Martin-
open to the public, many of them during the lunch hour for the
Gropius-Bau in Berlin, Germany and the Preus Museum in
convenience of our University friends and anyone visiting the
Horten, Norway. Ms. Rubio selected the work according
campus at that hour. Other lectures will be offered during the
cover: Margaret Bourke-White, [Man tightening the large nuts on the turbine shell of the Dneprostroi Hydroelectric Plant near Zaporizhia, Soviet Union, (now Ukraine)], 1930 Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
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June Wayne, Barcelona Wave, 1973. Gift of Robin and Bob Park.
run of the exhibition that will illuminate the career and work of
to be founded by women in the 1950s and 1960s. Tatyana
Margaret Bourke-White and place her within the context of 20th
Grosman began Universal Limited Art Editions in 1957 and
century photography.
helped begin a revolution in art lithography that continues to this day. Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Larry Rivers and
We will also be presenting an exhibition of work by Tammy Renée
Helen Frankenthaler are just a few of the artists that worked at
Brackett who is a faculty member at Alfred State, SUNY College
ULAE. June Wayne founded Tamarind Lithography Workshop
of Technology. Ms. Brackett’s work was shown at the Galleries
in Los Angeles in 1960 when she received a grant from the Ford
in 2012 as part of the ToNY (The other New York) exhibition when
Foundation to help develop a studio where professional artists
she showed her two-channel video, Field Guide. That work
could make prints with the aid of a master printer. Richard
developed an immersive experience using fragments of pages from
Diebenkorn, Karl Schrag and Louise Nevelson were a few of the
Peterson’s Field Guide to Birds of North America, and the journal The
artists who were invited to work at Tamarind. Kathan Brown’s
Philosophy of Science to create a virtual walk through a woods. She
Crown Point Press helped to transform printmaking in the San
will be presenting new work for this exhibition.
Francisco Bay area opening its doors in 1962. Richard Tuttle, Chuck Close, and Sol LeWitt (‘49) are among the artists who
During the academic year we will also be presenting the
worked with Brown and her master printmakers.
work of another important woman artist in our Photography Study Room. Barbara Morgan was a founding member of the
Samuel Gorovitz, Professor of Philosophy and former Dean of
Aperture Foundation and earned a reputation as a Modernist
the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University, has
photographer. Much of her work involves dance, photomontage,
contributed an article to this newsletter on the importance of
and a desire to capture motion. She often would design her
seeing an original object. The idea came to him after a visit
images so that the figure was shown against neutral or blank
to the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits last August. At
backgrounds that heightened the energy of the motion.
the Art Galleries we are drawn to original objects and often
The photographs in Dancing Atoms: Photographs by Barbara
people seek our help determining originals versus fakes
Morgan are from the permanent collection and were directed
or reproductions. In the art world there are many types
to Syracuse University through the generosity of the Diane and
of reproductions, for instance, multiple copies of a bronze
Martin Ackerman Foundation and Robert Menschel. They are
sculpture, or impressions from the same copper plate, all
responsible for helping us build our collection of 20th century
considered originals; but there are also reproductions such
American photographs that include the work of Berenice Abbott,
as posters after paintings or inexpensive bronze copies
Phillipe Halsman, Leopold Hugo and Todd Webb.
made ‘after’ originals. Dr. Gorovitz effectively states how our experiences can be enhanced when viewing important objects
In our Print Study Room we will present Making Their Mark: The
in a museum environment or in their native settings. I think
Rise of the American Printworkshop, displaying the work from
you will enjoy his observations.
several important printmaking workshops that each happened
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FEATURED/EXHIBITION Tammy Renée Brackett:
DEER DEAR August 19 – October 19, 2014 GALLERY RECEPTION Thursday, September 4, 5:00 – 7:00 P.M.
Left: Tammy Renée Brackett, Walking, 2014. Right: Brackett in her studio stretching deer hides, photograph courtesy of David Prince
First you have to find a deer. Time based artist Tammy Renée Brackett’s comment echoes
asymmetrical border. Other works in the exhibition include
what many hunters know: that deer, which are everywhere
prints using digitally shaped hides as a visual frame. Placed
during the spring and summer, seemingly disappear towards
inside are still images from related videos.
the end of September when hunting season begins. Brackett became interested in the subject after moving to a home 2000
An accompanying audio soundtrack describes the many man-
feet up on the side of a hill just outside of Alfred, NY. Having
made sounds heard by wildlife in the woods. The variably
been raised on a farm, Brackett found this exposed location
pitched whir of a next door windmill’s blades combines
more extreme and a fascinating area to explore.
with the regular creaking from its mechanical housing. Also audible is a steady drip, drip, drip of maple sap dripping into
Her desire to investigate her surroundings coupled with the
several buckets set out by the artist to make syrup. Brackett’s
(unasked for) acquisition of a 16 gauge, single shot break
exhibition raises the question of who, humans or deer, has the
action shotgun began her career as a hunter. Brackett took a
larger impact on the other.
doe in her second season and learned from a neighbor how to stretch and tan the hide. She then designed small light silhouettes that replicated running deer. Using computer software, Brackett multiplied the silhouettes into virtual herds, running in place on the tanned deer skin. Because every hide is shaped differently, the artist developed a digital outline of each one to insure the light silhouettes would fall inside the
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THE PALITZ GALLERY/NYC EXHIBITION
Karl Schrag, Vanishing Day (Second Version), c1990. Loan courtesy of Karl Schrag LLC.
Karl Schrag:
Memories and premonitions AUGUST 26 – OCTOBER 30, 2014 The Palitz Gallery, Syracuse University Lubin House 11 East 61st Street, New York City suinnyc.syr.edu
This exhibition is a selection from the larger retrospective presented at Syracuse University Art Galleries in 2012, which was the first major examination of Karl Schrag’s work since his death in 1995. Reflective of his masterful handling of the figure, landscape, still-life scenes, and the evocative power of his vision, this exhibition includes Schrag’s paintings, prints, and drawings. Most importantly, the selected works convey the artist’s ability to see the landscape as if for the first time, the surprise of that special view, the recognition of his ability to feel wonder when looking at nature or figure, and the reward associated with seeing the world through his eyes. The fully illustrated exhibition catalog Karl Schrag: Memories and Premonitions will be available for purchase in both soft and hard cover formats.
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On the road/TRAVEX An American in Venice: James McNeill Whistler and His Legacy
Pure Photography: Pictorial and Modern Photographs from the Syracuse University Art Collection
Fort Smith Regional Art Museum, Fort Smith, AR October 2, 2014 - January 4, 2015
Foundry Art Centre, St. Charles, MO
Art in the Detail: 20th Century Masters of Photography
May 2 - August 1, 2014 South East Museum of Photography, Daytona, FL September 13 - December 14, 2014
Texas A&M University Galleries, College Station, TX
Georges Rouault: Cirque de L’Etoile Filante
August 14 - October 12, 2014
Winslow Homer and the American Pictorial Press
Huntsville Museum of Art, Hunstville, AL November 8, 2014 - January 11, 2015
Museum of the Southwest, Midland, TX September 5 - November 30, 2014
Want to learn more about the exhibitions available? Visit us online at
Pulled, Pressed and Screened: Important American Prints
travex.syr.edu
Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI June 21 - August 17, 2014 Piedmont Arts Association, Martinsville, VA September 12 - November 8, 2014
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Calendar/Exhibition August 19 – October 19, 2014 Main Gallery
November 6, 2014 – January 18, 2015 Main Gallery
Margaret BourkeWhite: Moments in History 1930-1945
FACULTY EXHIBITION OPENING RECEPTION Thursday, November 13 5:00 – 7:00 P.M. The Photography Study Room
DANCING ATOMS Photographs by Barbara Morgan The Print Study Room
MAKING THEIR MARK The Rise of the American Print Workshop
THE PALITZ GALLERY
Syracuse University Lubin House New York City
Margaret Bourke-White, [Boy with a hammer, Magnitogorsk, Soviet Union, 1931]. Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries © Estate of Margaret Bourke-White/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
August 26 – October 30, 2014
Also ON VIEW
Karl Schrag:
Tammy Renée Brackett:
Memories and Premonitions
DEAR deer The Reception Gallery
Collection Spotlight: Perspectives OPENING RECEPTION Thursday, SEPTEmber 4 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Karl Schrag, The Song of the Elements, 1995. Gift of Katherine Schrag Wangh.
November 6, 2014 – January 29, 2015
Faculty exhibition 8
Calendar/EDucation Lecture An Evening with Tammy Renée Brackett
LUNCHTIME LECTURES Select Wednesdays at 12:15
Tuesday, September 16 6:30 p.m.
For a complete list of scheduled lectures, visit suart.syr.edu
September 10 Gallery Talk: Dear Deer
Shemin Auditorium, Shaffer Art Building Sponsored as a part of the Visiting Artist Lecture Series College of Visual and Performing Arts
with David Prince, Associate Director and Curator of Collections
SYMPOSIUM
September 24 Gallery Talk: Collection Spotlight
Presented by Syracuse University Libraries in concert with Margaret Bourke-White: Moments in History 1930–1945 (SUArt) and Context: Reading the Photographs of Margaret Bourke-White (SU Libraries)
October 1 – 2, 2014
with Domenic Iacono, Director
Critical Connections Lecture and Mini-Seminar
November 12 Gallery Talk: Faculty Exhibition
with Alexander Nemerov Lightness: In the Air with William Faulkner and Margaret Bourke-White
with Andrew Saluti, Assistant Director
These lectures are free and open to the public. Preregistration is required for the mini-seminars and workshops.
November 19 Gallery Talk: Barbara Morgan Photographs
Visit library.syr.edu/find/scrc/programs for more information.
SPECIAL EVENTS Orange Central October 10, 2014 at the SUArt Galleries
with Emily Dittman, Collections and Exhibitions Coordinator
10:00 A.M. ART ON CAMPUS TOUR with Syracuse University Art Galleries Assistant Director Andrew Saluti
2:00 P.M. Special Gallery Tour Margaret Bourke-White: Moments in History 1930–1945
Special programming designed specifically to engage
with Lucy D. Mulroney
children and families with the exhibitions and
Interim Senior Director of Special Collections,
collections at the SUArt Galleries
Syracuse University Libraries
Parents Weekend
October 4 - 5, 2014 2:00 P.M. Printmaking Workshop
Behind the Scenes at the SUArt Galleries
November 15, 2014 2:00 P.M. Making Musical Instruments with Zeke Leonard
visit syr.edu/alumni/events/orangecentral for more information.
October 31, 2014 2:00 P.M.
with Assistant Director Andrew Saluti Special sneak-peek gallery tour
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THE REAL THING/EDUCATION by Samuel Gorovitz When and why does it matter to have a real object on display in a museum, rather than some representation of it—electronic or otherwise? The eminent Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt, in his Pulitzer Prize winning book The Swerve, writes that “... art always penetrates the fissures in one’s psychic life.” How we are struck by a painting, a piece of music, or an object in an exhibition will depend, unpredictably, on who we are, what we know, and what will trigger an emotional reaction that transcends intellectual engagement with that art. We can be completely startled by this phenomenon. David O’Hara described such a moment vividly, recounting his first viewing of Guernica: I had no idea. This museum apparently was not a locked space for storing images; it was a classroom in which I could watch Picasso labor over this painting....I took a breath, and walked briskly into the room, intending to keep my jaw firm, my spine straight, my knees steady. I turned and looked.
Wooly mammoth skeleton, Page Museum, La Brea Tar Pits. Photograph courtesy of Samuel Gorovitz.
What counted for me in seeing Darwin’s magnifying glass, however, was not that he used one exactly like this, but that he had used this. The power of the perception depended on the provenance of the object, not on its observable physical properties.
And then I fell down..... When I turned that corner and saw “Guernica” I had the feeling I was standing in front of something holy....Picasso knocked me to my knees...1
Anne Fadiman, in Marrying Libraries (Chapter One of Ex Libris, a book I’ve savored a dozen times), addresses similar issues, recalling how she and her husband deliberated about which of two copies of a book to keep. (If an unsigned, unmarked copy was given to me by the author, does that have more value than an identical copy I had already bought?)
I read that en route to Los Angeles to visit the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits in August 2013, and knew just what O’Hara meant. Some years ago, I had seen the Darwin exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History. Although no expert, I knew a lot about Darwin and his work. I’d read biographies, traced his steps in the Galapagos, extolled the literary virtues of his Voyage of the Beagle, seen the Darwin exhibition in London. Little information in the AMNH exhibition was new to me. Then, suddenly, I was inches away from his magnifying glass–not a replica, but the real thing. He had held it, peered through it at specimens, relied on it in his monumental, tenacious effort to figure out how things work. To my amazement, there were tears streaming down my cheeks. I had the feeling I was standing in front of something holy.
Seeing the real thing can matter for reasons of scale and context. Whatever one has read, seen in photographs, or even experienced in IMAX-scale documentaries, nothing approximates the impact of the golden dome in Jerusalem reflecting the magical light of the setting sun. Standing at the foot of the massive temple at Abu Simbel conveys a sense of scale and grandeur for which there can be no facsimile. (This is true, also, for natural wonders: the Grand Canyon can be seen only at the Grand Canyon; the falls at Iguazu, seen and heard and felt through the mist can have no replica.)
Had the magnifying glass been a flawless facsimile– indistinguishable from the original but not misrepresented–it might have been worth seeing. But that powerful sense of proximity to Darwin would have been missing. It was crucial that this was the real thing. Yet sometimes a facsimile is fine. How can we understand the difference?
Sometimes, the impact of authenticity has to do with specificity of place. Walking among the ruins in Athens, one realizes that the ancient thinkers walked here, breathed this air under this sky. When I looked into the cell on Robben Island that held Mandela for so many years, my hands gripping the bars, it was not just a sense of his history that gave the moment such impact. It was a sense of place—of seeing, and being, where he had been. 3
In a compelling account of art forger Mark Landis, Alec Wilkinson reports that: He believes that if something is beautiful, it doesn’t matter whether it is genuine; rather, the impression it engenders is what counts. He thinks that he has given work to small museums that couldn’t afford it, so that people who wouldn’t usually encounter such pieces can see them and be broadened. This attitude accords with the earlier philosophies of American museums, which often presented facsimiles of European sculpture in the form of plaster casts. At one point the Museum of Fine Art in Boston had the thirdlargest collection of plaster casts in the world. “Initially there wasn’t the mission among our museums that you needed to have original works of art,” Henry Adams [professor of art, Case Western Reserve] told me. 2
Museums sometimes provide such encounters with immovable sights and sites when they sponsor trips, typically with docents as extensions of the museum–although too often a lockstep pace denies anyone the freedom to linger, reflect, and enter these portals to reverie. Some objects, immovable, can be seen only in situ—be they works of architecture (such as Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim-Bilbao, as seen from the nearby bridge, arising like a great gleaming flower above the multicolored boxcars in the railroad yard) or the Diego Rivera frescoes in the Detroit Institute of Art. The only option is to go to them.
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Other artistically important objects can be moved only at great cost in money, time, and effort. The bronze doors by Ghiberti from the Battistero di San Giovanni in Florence—called The Gates of Paradise by Michelangelo and 21 years in the making— are among the glories of Florence. My Syracuse colleague Gary Radke spent five years, in collaboration with the High Museum of Atlanta, arranging to bring them to the United States following their restoration. I’d marveled at them long ago in Florence, but seeing them at the Seattle Art Museum, viewing them closely from front and back, provided a sense of intimacy that was an enduring privilege. So the distinction between movable and immovable objects is malleable. Sometimes the mountain does come to Mohammed. The new halls of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum exemplify this, with rooms transported entirely from their original locations.
there—some as old as 50,000 years, were all found on site at La Brea, where current digs continue the ongoing discoveries. A tiny toe bone from a Paleolithic mouse may intrigue or amuse; looking up at the entire skeletons of megafauna that once were looking for lunch right here inspires awe. So it is also with the 5-foot head of Sue, the Field Museum’s Tyrannosaurus rex, from 65-67 million years ago. If these were replicas, there could always be some small uncertainty (or comfort) in wondering whether the real thing is quite so scary. And the knowledge that one is seeing a replica intrudes a layer of distance between the viewer and the history of the object. A replica of the head of Sue had no ferocious roar, did not terrify prey, did not die in circumstances we would love to understand but will never know. In September 2012, huge crowds waited in Syracuse to see Lincoln’s handwritten draft of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. This priceless original document, from the collection of the New York State Library, was shown in collaboration with the Onondaga Historical Association and the New York State Museum in Albany. Reluctant to turn viewers away, an exhausted staff voluntarily stayed on for hours after the official closing time of the one-day exhibition, aware of the emotional power of an encounter between a viewer and the hand of Lincoln– not the equal of shaking his massive, world-changing hand, but as close to that as we can get. A replica could have the same text and appearance. It could not have the same emotional power.
In principle, even Rembrandt’s The Night Watch could travel from its home in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. But when renowned treasures travel, viewers often wait in crowded lines for measured glimpses–as I once waited in London four hours to see Tutankhamun’s mask. Seeing The Night Watch means lingering before it, searching for the sources of light within it, attending to the shadows, the clothing, the markers of status or station– looking at it and into it over and over again, slowly. That’s rarely how we can see the real thing when it comes to visit.
The power of the perception depends on the provenance of the object, not on its observable physical properties.
Sometimes what we seek in looking at an artistic artifact, a fossil, or a document is just information–about a text, structure, or design. A facsimile then can serve us well. But the stakes are higher, and the impact deeper, when we have a sense of immediacy and personal connection with an important part of our own past, or of a part of the world we want to understand much better. Whether we are open to such an experience depends on us. When we are, only the real thing will do.
And as Radke has called to my attention, even when we visit an artistic object in its original place, its context has changed over time. He notes: “the light and the surface condition…will usually have aged to something unrecognizable to original viewers.” Regarding The Gates of Paradise, he adds “Intimate viewing is the primary experience…but so is the sense of seeing ‘the forbidden,’ what in this case the artist hid behind the reliefs and never intended us to see.” Setting aside such outlier examples, however, we can clarify when the real thing matters essentially. It is when the viewer’s knowing that the object is authentic induces an emotional response to that very fact–a sense of immediacy and connection that the object can prompt precisely because it relates its own history to that part of the viewer’s history that triggers the emotional response and a cascade of associative thinking. MIT Professor Nancy Hopkins sought more office space, but was denied repeatedly. She began to study who had how much space, and documented that male scientists were supported far more generously. Her findings led to a report that catalyzed corrective measures at MIT and nationally. That’s unfinished business. But the story, told in the MIT Museum’s EXHIBITION150, is represented by one iconic object–the modest tape measure Hopkins used in documenting the inequities. Any tape measure can measure an office or lab. Only this one is the one she used, and therein lies its special impact–its ability, in light of all it represents, to prompt the calm, accomplished, well-established scientist to realize that the tape measure seems suddenly blurry, seen through teary eyes. 4
Samuel Gorovitz is Professor of Philosophy and former Dean of The College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University. Above: Barbara Hepworth, Biolith, 1948-49. Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Virginia Vogel Mattern in memory of her husband, W. Gray Mattern, Class of 1946
At the Page Museum, almost everything is real. There’s a diorama or two, but the millions of fossils on display and in storage
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NOTES 1 David O’Hara, “The Day Picasso Made Me Fall Down”, Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/16/2013, Accessed July 17, 2014. http://chronicle.com/article/The-Day-Picasso-MadeMe-Fall/140915/ 2 Alec Wilkinson, “The Giveaway”, The New Yorker, August 26, 2013. p. 28 3 http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2013/12/we_have_lost_mandela_but_we_ne.html 4 http://museum.mit.edu/150/71
DANCING ATOMS/COLLECTION
Barbara Morgan, Martha Graham, El Penitente, 1940 (Solo - Erick Hawkins - El Flagellante), 1940. Gift of Robert B. Menschel
Barbara Morgan Photographs in the Syracuse University Art Collection Born in Kansas in 1900, Barbara Morgan (American 1900- 1970)
book project Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs.
moved with her family to a peach farm in Southern California
This series stands as Morgan’s most famous and well regarded
where she would spend her youth. Noticing an early inclination
project in her art career.
towards dance and movement, Morgan’s father suggested that the five-year old “think of everything in the world as dancing
However, dance was not the only form of energy that Morgan
atoms.” Since that young age, Morgan examined the world and
observed throughout her photographic career. She also was an
her artwork with this scientific curiosity.
early proponent of photomontage, an art movement which, at that time, was more prevalent in Europe than America. Morgan’s
Morgan attended UCLA and studied painting and art history,
interest in the European avant-garde technique was most likely
drawn in particular to the Chinese Six Canons of Painting-
as a result of her friendship with László Moholy-Nagy, who
which focused on rhythmic vitality, reinforcing her father’s
introduced her to the method of using light and objects as props
early suggestion on how to observe her surroundings. In 1925,
to create light drawings. Always connected in some way to her
she married Willard D. Morgan, a writer who recognized the
dance project, this new exploration in photomontages allowed
importance of photography as a tool for photojournalism. Her
her to “feel the pervasive, vibratory character of light energy as a
husband was an early proponent of the craft and soon after their
partner of the physical and spiritual energy of the dance, and as
marriage swayed Morgan, reluctantly, into exploring photography
the prime mover of the photographic process.”
as an additional creative outlet. As proven in Morgan’s photographs, the exploration of movement During the 1930s, the couple moved to New York City and started
is a theme that countless photographers have been drawn to
a family. Morgan set up a photography studio on East 23rd Street,
in the past. Capturing the beauty and effort of kinetic energy
and was introduced to the Martha Graham Dance Company.
on film takes not only a keen photographic eye, but, more
Inspiration struck as she observed the movements of the dancers.
importantly, an understanding of the science that creates such
She also was impressed by the courage of dancers in the 1930s
action. Barbara Morgan was one such photographer. Her
to continue with their craft, one that was financially unstable, in
legacy of observing life in relation to “dancing atoms” is forever
a time of social and financial distress in America. From the mid-
preserved on film and on paper, providing a glimpse into her
1930s until the 1940s, Morgan photographed the dance company,
world of photography, painting, light and modern dance.
capturing the beauty and science of their movements for her
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IN MEMORIAM/ REMEMBERING DR. ALFRED T. COLLETTE Director Emeritus of the University Art Collection
1922 – 2014 Dr. Alfred T. Collette served as the Director of the Syracuse University Art Collection for thirty-one years. At the time of his appointment in 1974, he was Chair of the Science Teaching Department in the College of Arts and Sciences, a department he founded and was among the earliest in the country. One of his principal responsibilities upon being named Director of the Art Collection was developing a central repository for and completing the first comprehensive inventory of the collection’s more than 8000 objects. Over his tenure the collection grew to more than 30,000 objects and became an active educational resource used by faculty from multiple disciplines.
times, as chair of the Department of Bacteriology and Botany and the Department of Zoology. He was a faculty member in the Graduate Program in Museology after its founding in 1976, teaching for many years the class Collections Management. Dr. Collette was also a passionate art collector with a particular interest in prints, a focus that still guides the collection today. While Rembrandt and Picasso were among the artists who attracted especial attention, Collette’s interests were broad ranging. He acquired a diverse collection of two and three dimensional objects from Cinquecento Italian paintings to 20th century American graphics. Other collecting interests included Japanese Shin Hanga prints and Chinese ceramics.
Education defined Dr. Collette’s career. Al served in World War II as a weatherman in the Pacific and then returned to Syracuse University and completed a Doctorate in Genetics in 1952. After joining the faculty Collette served, at various
Dr. Collette passed away in January.
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ART ON CAMPUS/COLLECTION While exploring the Syracuse University campus, one can’t
Malvina Hoffman (American 1885-1966)
help but be stricken by the dynamic and important works of art located in our buildings and grounds. What is also distinctive
Elemental Man, 1936
is that many of the monumental bronzes have been created by
White/MacNaughton Patio
some of the most regarded female sculptors of the 20th century. Malvina Hoffman’s most comprehensive project of her long career involved modeling more than 100 ethnic portraits for the Hall of Man at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Elemental Man appears to have much of the same strength and power that characterized her Field Museum series. The male figure struggles to free himself from solid rock in an effort that portrays man’s strength to conquer his surroundings. The sculpture was first exhibited at the New York World’s Fair of 1939 where it received worldwide attention. After studying with Rodin, Hoffman traveled to Yugoslavia in the 1920s to study with Ivan Mestrovic. She was one of the principal individuals who convinced the Yugoslavian government to release Mestrovic from prison and allow him to finish his commissions at the Vatican. Hoffman also played an important role with Syracuse University Chancellor William Tolley and his decision to offer Mestrovic a faculty position after the war ended.
Luise Meyers Kaish (American 1925–2013)
Saltine Warrior, 1951 Shaw Quadrangle, Carnegie Library Luise Kaish designed this version of the original mascot for Syracuse University athletic teams in the early 1950s. The Saltine Warrior embodies those qualities that students, alumni, and fans have come to expect from their athletic teamsstrength, endurance, and agility. A 1946 alumna of Syracuse, Kaish was also a distinguished pupil of Ivan Mestrovic. She was commissioned to make the sculpture after winning a School of Art competition.
Take the Art on Campus tour using your smartphone or mobile device at artoncampus.syr.edu
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MAKING THEIR MARK/COLLECTION Like Grosman, artist June Wayne was frustrated at the lack of facilities in the United States for artists to collaborate with master printers. Trained as a painter and designer, Wayne traveled to Paris in the 1950s to work with French master printmaker Marcel Durassier. There, Wayne created an artist’s book illustrating the work of English poet John Donne. This publication caught the attention of W. McNeil Lowry, arts director of the Ford Foundation. With his support, Wayne established the Tamarind School of Lithography in 1960. Together with artist Clinton Adams and master printmaker Garo Antreasian, Tamarind would become the foremost center for lithography in the United States, collaborating with artists including Sam Francis, Joseph Albers, Louise Nevelson and Karl Schrag. The school would also train some of the most influential printmakers, including Judith Solodkin and Ken
The women behind the printmaking workshops that sparked a print revival in America.
Tyler (Gemeni G.E.L.). June Wayne moved Tamarind to the University of New Mexcio in 1970, where it continues to publish works and train master printmakers in the art of lithography. Kathan Brown also found inspiration in the European print tradition. Brown studied etching in London at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. While on holiday in Edinburgh, she
The mid-twentieth century brought pivotal change to the art
happened upon an abandoned etching press. Shipping the
of the print in the United States. The headway made in graphic
press from Scotland to San Francisco, Brown established
arts due to the backing of the WPA gave way to a world at war.
Crown Point Press, known for progressive work with the
The rise of Abstract Expressionism–the American art movement
intaglio processes. Richard Deibenkorn, Wayne Thiebaud and
guided by the principles of immediacy and direct interaction
Sol LeWitt are but a few of the artists who have collaborated
with the canvas opposed to the toil and time that the print
with Brown at Crown Point Press.
process imbued–pushed some away from medium. The energy of S.W. Hayter’s New York incarnation of his experimental
Thanks to the diligence of these pioneers, the American print
printmaking studio Atelier 17 was in decline after his return to
renaissance blossomed. The establishment of these workshops
Paris in 1950. But thanks to the industry and resolve of a few
solidified the relevance of the print in contemporary art by
pioneering women, a revival would ignite that introduced the
fostering a collaborative relationship between artist and master
artists who would shape 20th century art-making.
printer and unveiled new possibilities and experimentation in the process of our most regarded contemporary artists.
In 1957 Russian emigree Tatyana Grosman longed to bring the European traditions of the livres d’artiste (the artist’s book) to the United States. After she and her husband, a struggling artist and printmaker, relocated from their Manhattan apartment to a summer cottage in West Islip, Long Island, they found two lithography stones in the front yard. They purchased a press from a neighbor and invited artist Larry Rivers to collaborate with poet Frank O’Hara on what would become the portfolio Stones, aptly named for the two original stones that initiated what would become Universal Limited Art Editions. Through Rivers, ULAE published editions by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Helen Frankenthaler, and dozens of other artists that read as a veritable who’s who of American art.
Above left: June Wayne at Tamarind in the 1960s. Photograph by Helen Miljakovich. Lower left: Kathan Brown at Crown Point Press. Right: Tatyana Grosman in 1977 watches poet Andrei Voznesensky work on his lithograph Darkness Mother at Universal Limited Art Editions. Photograph by Bob Petersen.
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The Syracuse University Art Galleries is pleased to present our first limited edition print
The Artist’s Proof
Created by acclaimed illustrator and longtime faculty member
The purchase of all SUArt Galleries catalogs, posters, and prints
Roger De Muth, this relief print depicts a studio assistant
DIRECTLY SUPPORT the dynamic exhibitions and engaging
working on the artist’s cherished Albion printing press in
programs and events that strive to enrich the Syracuse Arts
his Cazenovia, NY studio. Hand signed by the artist, each
community. Shop online at suart.syr.edu/shop
impression comes in a hand-printed and embossed folio.
Art
Published by the SUArt Galleries in 2013 in an edition of 200. Available now exclusively at the SUArt Gallery Shop.
THE
OF GIVING
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