Stanley Museum of Art Magazine Spring 2021

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SPRING

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STAN L E Y M US EU M .U IOWA.EDU Editor: Elizabeth M. Wallace Editorial Team: Rebecca Hanssens-Reed and Derek Nnuro Design: Benson & Hepker Design Copyright © 2021

STANLEY MUSEUM OFART

TEMPORARY OFFICES

OLD MUSEUM OF ART BUILDING 150 N. Riverside Drive OMA 100 Iowa City, IA 52242 By appointment 319-335-1727 stanley-museum@uiowa.edu

TEMPORARY LOCATION

FIGGE ART MUSEUM 225 West Second Street Davenport, IA 52801 563-326-7804 Free admission for University of Iowa students, faculty, and staff with UI ID cards and SMA members with membership cards By reservation Hours Tuesday–Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

Thursday: 10 a.m.–9 p.m.

Sunday: 12–5 p.m.

THANK YOU

to our magazine sponsors John R. Menninger Ellen M. Widiss

Unidentified Japanese artist Untitled (Woman reading scroll), 20th century Woodcut with embossing 15 x 7 1/4 in. (38.1 x 18.42 cm) Gift of Karen F. Beall in honor of Dale K. Haworth, M2016.162 This print came to the collection as a gift, along with the six carved woodblocks used to make this embossed, vibrant work.

Learn more about the donors on page 10.

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SPRING 2021

COVER Tanzania; Makonde artist Shitengamatu [open your ears] mask, early to mid-20th century Earthenware, pigment 9 1/4 x 9 x 5 in.

The Stanley Collection of African Art, X1990.709

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Calendar of Events

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Director’s Welcome

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LOOKING FORWARD Reimagining Ritual and Style Collections Conservation New to the Collection Construction Update How to Move a Collection

16 MY MUSEUM

Building on a Legacy 18

LEARNING & ENGAGEMENT Grant Wood Fellows Stanley Reads Stanley Creates Museum from Home

24 STAFF SPOTLIGHT

Steve Erickson 25 ADVISORY BOARD SPOTLIGHT

Dr. Elliot Sohn 26 FROM THE UI CENTER FOR ADVANCEMENT

Virtual Wall Signing

From the Associate Director of Development

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STANLEYMUSEUMOFART EXHIBITIONS

As we prepare to move the museum’s collection to our new home in 2022, all current exhibitions will remain on extended view.

CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC

Stanley Visual Classroom, Iowa Memorial Union

ONGOING

Pollinators, Figge Art Museum

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

All programs will be held on Zoom unless otherwise indicated. *Registration required at https://stanleymuseum.uiowa.edu/events

JANUARY 19

7:00 p.m.

Dive In with the Stanley, Simone Leigh, 103 (Face Jug Series) Instagram Live (@uistanleymuseum)

8:00 p.m.

Stanley Studio Visit with Elena Smyrniotis

FEBRUARY 6*

2:00 p.m.

Stanley Reads Book Club, At the End of the Century: The Stories of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala with Kimberly Datchuk, Curator of Learning & Engagement, presented in partnership with Prairie Lights Books. Recommended companion book Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition by Nisid Hajari.

FEBRUARY 11

5:00 p.m.

Dickinson Lecture at Penn State University, Joyce Tsai, Chief Curator

FEBRUARY 19

11:00 a.m.

smART Talk with Ain Grooms, Assistant Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership, College of Education, and Joyce Tsai, Chief Curator

FEBRUARY 20*

2:00 p.m.

Stanley Reads Book Club, At the End of the Century: The Stories of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

FEBRUARY 22

7:30 p.m.

Grant Wood Fellow Talk, Margarita Blush

FEBRUARY 27*

2:00 p.m.

Stanley Creates, Star Accordion Book with Lauren Linahon MA candidate in Art Education

MARCH 6*

2:00 p.m.

Stanley Reads Book Club, At the End of the Century: The Stories of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

MARCH 20*

2:00 p.m.

Stanley Reads Book Club, At the End of the Century: The Stories of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

MARCH 29

7:30 p.m.

Grant Wood Fellow Talk, Elena Smyrniotis

APRIL 10

2:00 p.m.

Saturdays at the Stanley, Japanese Woodblock Prints and Process with Sarah Luko, Assistant Registrar

APRIL 16

11:00 a.m.

smART Talk, “The Public Rights Principle for Public Art Museums,” with Jennifer Miller, Stanley Graduate Assistant in Learning & Engagement and PhD candidate in Language, Literacy, and Culture, College of Education

APRIL 17*

2:00 p.m.

Stanley Reads Book Club, At the End of the Century: The Stories of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

APRIL 24*

2:00 p.m.

Stanley Creates, 3D Self-Portraits with Lauren Linahon, MA candidate in Art Education

APRIL 26

7:30 p.m.

Grant Wood Fellow Talk, Johnathan Payne

MAY 1*

2:00 p.m.

Stanley Reads Book Club, At the End of the Century: The Stories of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

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Dear Friends, It’s a blustery, sunny day here in Iowa City. With many students home for the holidays, the University of Iowa campus is quiet. It’s hard to believe just how much has happened in the past year. Like other art museums across the country and around the world, the Stanley has stretched to meet the challenges of this extraordinary time, demonstrating how art can bring us together in powerful ways even in the midst of a deadly pandemic. By building community and enhancing empathy, art can also help us advance the work of antiracism and begin to heal our deep political divisions.

Since pivoting to online platforms in March 2020, we’ve offered a rich array of public and educational programs that have brought our varied audiences together. Opportunities to read together, make art together, and watch together as artists present their moving, creative responses to the upheavals of the past year have strengthened us as a community. Nowhere is this more evident than in Connected for Life, the Stanley’s adult education program for residents of senior living communities. Recognizing how vital the program has been for Iowa seniors, the Institute for Museum and Library Services awarded us a two-year grant to expand Connected for Life. We are now collaborating with the UI Libraries, Pentacrest Museums, and the State Archaeologist’s Office to serve a part of our community profoundly affected by COVID-19.

Photo by Avery Tucker

With less than a year to go on construction of our new museum, the Stanley’s staff has also been hard at work packing our collection and planning our inaugural exhibition. At the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, each work of art is being evaluated before it is then carefully packed for its journey back to Iowa City. Object by object, our extraordinary collection is coming home. A splendid selection of these artworks will soon be installed in our new galleries, which, in fall 2022, will invite us all to think about the power of art to broaden our minds, enhance our empathy, hone our creativity, and remind us that we are human. I can’t wait to open the doors and welcome you home!

Warmest wishes,

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Reimagining Ritual and Style 2020 was a year of reckoning and reflection, a year of witnessing the need for a more just world.

The Stanley Museum of Art’s collections are comprised of artworks that are at once snapshots in time and portals for envisioning better futures.

Curators continue to plan the inaugural exhibition with an eye on each artwork’s potential as an entry point to new worlds. The Stanley’s peerless African art collection, in particular, is perfectly poised to engage with emerging visions that African art not be limited to the continent, but rather, that it embody a global African aesthetic and identity.

When the new museum opens, visitors will be welcomed into 35,000 square feet of display space; the African collection will be on view in nearly 10,000 square feet. Many African objects will appear in History is Always Now, an exhibition

from the permanent collection featuring historic and contemporary works from around the world. Other exhibitions, on the other hand, will be devoted entirely to works from the African collection.

Reimagining Ritual and Style is the most important of the Africa-focused exhibitions in terms of physical scale and historical significance at the museum.

The exhibition honors the history of Art & Life in Africa as a long-standing foundation that has engaged with the Stanley Collection of African Art, and that uses the life cycle as an interpretive lens for understanding African art. Reimagining Ritual and Style provides a critical reassessment of this approach. In order to clearly represent the role of African art in a world it has animated for centuries, and to better represent the diaspora of artists that belong to this legacy, Reimagining Ritual and Style

El Anatsui (Ghanaian, 1944– ) Transit, 2002 Wood: black afara, ofo, oyili-oji, ovoro and tempera paint 60 x 24 in.

Purchased with funds from the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization, 2002.106a-o © El Anatsui. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

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LOOKING FORWARD

also highlights the arts of global Africa—rather than those from the continent proper.

Reimagining Ritual and Style will feature some of the African collection’s most celebrated objects.

This includes a Chokwe style mwanangana (figure of a chief), one of Max Stanley’s personal favorites. This piece is an excellent example of the canonical style that characterizes the Stanley Collection of African Art. Additionally, Charles Kwabena Boateng’s kente cloth—one of the largest pieces of kente in the collection—is at once a stunning example of a technique that reaches back centuries in West Africa and which now belongs to a global space for expressions of African identity.

Meanwhile El Anatsui’s Transit formally references the composition of kente: through scorched lines that evoke the violent scars of colonial rule and a title that targets mobility, Transit situates African art within a global conversation.

Artworks on display during the inaugural will highlight history’s bearing on the present. Yet, perhaps more importantly, in personifying the values of transformation that have informed the Stanley’s collecting philosophy, the artworks will offer museum visitors tools for imagining possible futures.

Angola; Chokwe artist Mwanangana (figure of a chief), early to mid-19th century Wood 14 1/4 x 5 1/2 x 4 1/2 in.

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Collections Conservation Lila Katzen belonged to a generation of artists who saw potential in industrial materials to create outdoor sculptures. While her male minimalist counterparts made hard-edged geometric shapes, Katzen explored the qualities of rolled steel to produce fluid, inviting forms that mirrored the natural world and encouraged viewers’ direct interaction. The Stanley Museum purchased Oracle from Katzen and installed it by the Iowa River in 1976. Katzen fabricated the sculpture with enormous ribbons of Cor-Ten steel, a material whose beauty and strength only increases as it weathers and rusts. But she also lined the central curve with stainless steel, offering a startling play of contrasting colors and textures—the deep, velvety brown Cor-Ten surrounds a silver ring of brittle light. The stainless steel lining makes a smooth and inviting interior, perfectly shaped for a curious child or playful adult. Even in the midst of a pandemic, we still see people studying or simply resting there, cradled by the sculpture, fulfilling the artist’s generous vision.

However, though the sculpture was designed for the outdoors, the elements have proved challenging to the integrity of Oracle. The joints that connect the different parts of the sculpture have worn away over time. The stainless steel lining of the central opening is also tearing away from the Cor-Ten exterior because the two materials absorb and disperse heat differently, shrinking and expanding at different rates. The sweltering heat of Iowa summers and the intensity of the winters 8

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LOOKING FORWARD

Even in the midst of a pandemic, we still see people studying or simply resting there, cradled by the sculpture, fulfilling the artist’s generous vision.

exacerbate stress points in the sculpture. Damage is especially acute at the discrete welds that hold the interior and exterior together, which are weakening or have cracked altogether.

In spring 2019, Lara Bampfield, a senior majoring in Art History with a deep interest in archaeology, was part of a cohort of students from the School of Art and Art History who secured competitive, funded internships at the Stanley Museum of Art. Though the museum has few antiquities in its collection, her desire to understand the science of materials and their impact on artistic process made her perfectly suited to examine the condition history of Oracle.

Through careful study of archival materials and the sculpture itself, along with correspondence with institutions that hold related works by Katzen, Bampfield compiled a meticulous dossier that conservators went on to use later that fall to better understand problems of and possible solutions to the sculpture’s condition.

Oracle is part of a suite of outdoor sculptures that will be conserved in time for the new museum, through the generosity of Don and Cheri Stock.

Lara Bampfield is looking forward to returning to see the sculpture restored in its new home. Since graduating in 2019, she went on to work as a field technician at the Office of the State Archaeologist, and is currently on an Erasmus fellowship funded by the European Union to work on cultural heritage sites in Cyprus and later in Santorini.

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Lila Katzen (American, 1926–1998) Oracle, 1974 Cor-Ten, stainless steel 132 x 204 x 60 in.

Purchased with the aid of funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and matching funds contributed by Mr. and Mrs. William O. Aydelotte, Edwin Green, Sylvia and Clement Hanson, Mr. and Mrs. Melvin R. Novick, and William and Lucile Jones Paff, 1976.88 © 2020 Philip Katzen and Lila Katzen Living Trust/ Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY Photos by Steve Erickson

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LOOKING FORWARD

New to the Collection Over a lifetime, Karen F. Beall and Dale K. Haworth have traveled the world and collected with care.

Since 2017, the couple have given over sixty artworks to the Stanley Museum of Art that reflect an astounding range, including prints from around the world and exquisite American ceramics.

Beall began her career at the National Gallery of Art and later became Curator of Fine Prints at the Library of Congress, where she served for over two decades. Haworth hails from the Midwest and earned his PhD in Art History from the University of Iowa in 1960 with a focus on early Christian mosaics in Italy. From there he went on to secure multiple prestigious fellowships, including the Danforth, two Fulbrights, and a Bush Foundation grant as professor of art history at Carleton College. As director of the Carleton Art Gallery, he curated over a hundred exhibitions and led countless study visits all over the world.

Hiroshi Yoshida (Japanese, 1876–1950) Matterhorn—Night, 1925 Wood block print on paper 21 5/16 x 15 1/4 in. (54.13 x 38.74 cm) Gift of Karen F. Beall in honor of Dale K. Haworth, 2020.42

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Gifts from Bealle and Haworth include avantgarde contemporary Eastern European works made by artists who once worked behind the Iron Curtain, old master prints, and Japanese woodblocks, including this remarkable print by Hiroshi Yoshida (1876–1950) acquired by the museum in 2019. Yoshida trained in westernstyle painting in his youth. In the wake of the catastrophic Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, Yoshida went abroad to the US and Europe. In 1925 Yoshida returned to Japan and translated his oil and watercolors of European and American landscapes into a series of woodblock prints.

The idyllic Swiss town cradled in the valley of the Alps seen in Matterhorn—Night (1925) is one exquisite example. In works like these we see the aesthetic foundation for Japanese graphic novels and animated films that integrate Japanese and Western sensibilities in unexpected ways. Such work exemplifies the transformative power of art and travel that Beall and Haworth embody in the passionate life and work they’ve shared together.

As director of the Carleton Art Gallery, Haworth curated over a hundred exhibitions and led countless study visits all over the world.

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Right: Southwest corner. Photo by Russell Construction Bottom right: Photo by Rod Kruse Bottom: Concrete topping slab being placed at the art lounge (in-floor radiant tubing in foreground).

Photo by Russell Construction Below: Glass installation, west side of the building.

Photo by Russell Construction

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LOOKING FORWARD

While there may be a bit less you can see on our construction webcam over the winter, the team will be busy. Take a look: https://webcam.iowa.uiowa.edu/sma

Construction update The new Stanley Museum of Art site is a hive of activity. Just like a beehive, much of the work is now happening on the inside, but exterior work continues as weather permits. Over the late summer and early fall the building shell was enclosed, and exterior brick work began on the west side of the building in early September; so far, brick has progressed across the south side of the building. The beauty of the brickworks can now be admired by passersby. The second level of bricks are set in a Flemish bond pattern, with the header bricks protruding from the face of the wall, which cast diagonal shadows in light at an oblique angle and will catch snow in the winter (left). Window frames and glass are being installed and workers are buttoning up the building for winter. Inside, installation continues of the wall framing, duct work, mechanical and fire suppression systems, steam, humidifiers, HVAC piping, and electrical conduits. As of early December 2020, 6,500 out of 14,000 linear feet of ductwork has been installed, weighing 70,000 pounds. Soon drywall and plywood installation will begin in the second-floor galleries. The project has passed the 60% completion mark and we are 100% excited every time we see the building!

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As of early December 2020,

6,500 out of

14,000

linear feet of ductwork has been installed, weighing

70,000 pounds

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How to Move a Collection: Packing the Museum The collections department at the Stanley has returned to packing the artwork at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, where the majority of the collection is stored. We have multiple methods for packing the collection depending on what type of object we are working with. These methods help us standardize our workflow and determine which objects need further care and consideration. Each object requires some examination as we pack it, but the packing methods described below are for general objects that don’t require an individualized approach because of the condition or physical characteristics.

The most common sculptures in the collection are African figures and masks.

Typically made of wood, their materials can also include leather, feathers, textiles, raffia, beads, and paint. Most often the biggest concern with packing these sculptures is ensuring that the surface is not damaged.

First, we wrap each object in tissue paper; next, we wrap and seal it in plastic to create a vapor barrier. This prevents changes in humidity, which can cause damage. We then wrap each object in a few layers of bubble wrap and place it in a box. Smaller pieces can be wrapped together in one box, as they don’t have enough mass to damage each other.

When packing ceramic objects, the first thing we need to consider is its specific vulnerabilities. Some are very thin and fragile overall, whereas others may have thin protruding parts that need to be protected. Fragile objects need to be 14

packed with light, flexible packing materials such as tissue paper and bubble wrap. This is because we need to ensure that if the box is slightly crushed that force won’t be transferred to the object. Likewise, a heavier object can transfer force to its own, more fragile parts. Imagine the weight of a heavy teapot pressing against its own spout. In this case we build up padding around the spout, which will help disperse its force to a larger, more stable part of the object.

Heavy ceramics require heavier, denser packing materials, such as archival foam.

This prevents the object from compressing the packing material and migrating to the perimeter of the box, where it could be damaged during transport.

Paintings are primarily packed in what are called shadow boxes. A shadow box is a shallow cardboard box that fits precisely around a painting, with the face side open; this protects the painting’s delicate surface.

We then stretch and tape polyethylene plastic sheeting over the box to suspend the plastic a couple inches above the face of the painting. The stretched plastic bends the cardboard of the box slightly, which keeps the painting secure inside. Once the boxed paintings are then labeled and placed on custom-made four-by-eight-foot carts, interleaved with large sheets of cardboard between each box, and tied off, they are ready for transport.

We look forward to returning the collection to our new home in Iowa City—and each object that we pack brings us one step closer to that reality.

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LOOKING FORWARD

Photos by Steve Erickson

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Building on a Roy J. Carver, Sr., knew how to turn a big idea into a thriving business empire—and he also understood the power of private giving. The Muscatine, Iowa, industrialist and philanthropist helped transform the state of Iowa and the University of Iowa, as well as the UI’s art museum, through his visionary support.

Nearly five decades ago, Carver, Sr., and his wife, Lucille, made a historic $3.5 million donation to the University of Iowa, a portion of which established the Carver Wing of the UI’s Museum of Art. This gift created 13,000 square feet of space for the Carver Gallery and Sculpture Court, the Lasansky Room, the Print Study Room and Curatorial Galleries, and work areas. It reflected the Carvers’ love of Iowa and their belief that art and culture played an integral role in Iowans’ educational experiences.

This gift [from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust] will allow the museum to host intellectually challenging exhibitions; engage students, scholars, and art lovers;

Today the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust of Muscatine, Iowa, continues to honor the couple’s commitment to the arts. In April 2020, the trust made a generous donation of $500,000 for the UI Stanley Museum of Art’s new building, which is scheduled to open in 2022. This gift will allow the museum to host intellectually challenging exhibitions; engage students, scholars, and art lovers; and inspire fresh ways of thinking about art collections and partnerships. It resulted in the naming of the Carver Trust Gallery, which will showcase important works from the museum’s collection.

Carver, Sr., established the Carver Trust in his will before his death in 1981. The organization is one of Iowa’s largest private philanthropic foundations—and also is the largest donor to the University of Iowa. As of November 2020, the trust had donated more than $202 million to Iowa, in support of everything from endowed faculty positions and research to student scholarships and the arts.

“Both the Carver family and the trust have helped our students, faculty, and visitors explore the human experience through exceptional works of art,” says Lauren Lessing, director of the UI Stanley Museum of Art. “This continued partnership will allow them to keep doing so far into the future.”

and inspire fresh ways of thinking about art collections and partnerships.

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Legacy

MY MUSEUM

UI President Willard “Sandy” Boyd, UI Museum of Art Director Jan K. Muhlert, Roy J. Carver Sr., Susan Boyd (September 1976)

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MARGARITA BLUSH FEBRUARY 22, 2021 ZOOM, 7:30 P.M. GRANT WOOD FELLOW IN INTERDISCIPLINARY PERFORMANCE

My Voice: Creating Original Theatre Inspired by Personal Experiences and Fueled by Societal Issues Margarita Blush creates original visual theatre that explores important contemporary issues and draws inspiration from her own experiences. In her talk, Margarita will trace the journey of her artistic process through sharing with the audience the evolution of her work in the last twenty years and focusing in particular on her last two productions: Unfolding and The Rule of the World.

Unfolding “Conjuring the Moon”

She is the Artistic Director of Margarita Blush Productions, an ensemblebased company that creates and performs original work. Blush’s latest production, Unfolding (2015), has been performed at festivals and venues in the US (including the 2017 National Puppetry Festival), Bulgaria, and Turkey (funded by The Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation US Artists International Program). In spring 2019 the show was performed at The Tank in New York City to great critical and audience acclaim. In summer 2019, as a recipient of an Asian Cultural Council Individual Fellowship, Blush traveled to Japan for eight weeks to study traditional Japanese theatre forms.

Blush works as a director, performer, and teacher in the field of devised theatre. Her work blends live acting, puppetry, movement, conceptual design, and original live music to produce imaginative and thoughtprovoking theatre experiences for the audience. Her work challenges traditional, institutionalized, and commercial theatre creation while engaging audiences with content that examines contemporary social and cultural values.

While a Grant Wood Fellow, Blush is developing a new show, The Rule of the World, set to premiere during the UI Department of Theatre Arts 2021–2022 season.

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ELENA SMYRNIOTIS MARCH 29, 2021 ZOOM, 7:30 P.M. GRANT WOOD FELLOW IN PRINTMAKING

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Dispossessed In her talk, Elena Smyrniotis will discuss themes of utopia and human desire for a better world. Her work draws on Sir Thomas More’s idea of Utopia as a remote geographical location, an island or a landscape that displays a visual order of utopia and dystopia in an ambiguous and evocative way. The Island can be discovered anywhere in the ocean, or in the middle of a busy metropolis. Smyrniotis considers physical and mental units for measuring the distance between where we are now and the place called Utopian Island. She contemplates the opposition between two orders—utopia and dystopia—not by separating them but seeing them together at the same time. She considers the two terms within each other in order to feel the extreme intensity of their confrontation, especially in a time when a dystopian future is a real possibility.

Elena Smyrniotis is a printmaking and installation artist with a background in architecture. Her work explores literary and historical utopian ideas through contemplations on the utopian landscape, with a particular focus on architecture, topography, and cartography. She earned an MFA in printmaking from the University of Notre Dame, an MA in printmaking and drawing from the University of Saint Francis, and an MA in Architecture and Engineering from State Petroleum University (Ufa, Russia).

Labyrinth

Her recent exhibitions include a solo show at PINEA-LINEA DA COSTA (Rota, Spain), Artlink Contemporary Gallery (Fort Wayne, IN), and the Snite Museum of Art (Notre Dame, IN), where she received the Walter Beardsley Award in 2017. She is a regular participant, and in 2018 was a guest of honor, in the International Art & Design Exhibition at Selcuk University (Konya, Turkey).

Smyrniotis has held fellowships and teaching positions in cultural institutions around the world. Most recently she was a fellow at the Rome Global Gateway in cooperation with the Capitoline Museums, the Hertziana Library, and Geographical Society of Italy in Rome; led a printmaking workshop at the Gems Metropole School in Dubai, UAE; and participated in a painting workshop at the Painting School of Montmiral in Montmiral, France. She has taught printmaking and drawing courses at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Saint Francis, and was the 2019 Visiting Artist at the School of Creative Arts at the University of Saint Francis. She is also a founder and director of the Art and Architectural School for Children (Ufa, Russia).

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JOHNATHAN PAYNE APRIL 26, 2021 ZOOM, 7:30 P.M. GRANT WOOD FELLOW IN PAINTING & DRAWING

Johnathan Payne: Chronicles of A Queer Abstractionist of Color in the 21st Century Working across drawing, painting, fibers, and installation, Payne’s work engages traditional and alternative modes of object and image production. His abstractions occupy a space of radical formalism where methodology, experimentation, and craft converge. Payne’s art practice oscillates between—and derives influence from—painting, sculpture, 2D design, and textile arts. Craft-affirming art movements such as Pattern and Decoration, as well as the schools of Bauhaus and Black Mountain College, also underpin Payne’s approach to artmaking. In this lecture, Payne will discuss his art practice in detail, sharing his insights on queer formalism, the relationship between fine art and craft, and what it means to be an Abstractionist of Color in the twenty-first century.

Johnathan Payne Daisy, 2019–20 Acrylic, thread on shreddedand-collaged paper 59 × 58 1/2 inches (149.86 × 148.59 cm)

Johnathan Payne (he/him) is a Queer, African American visual artist currently living and working in Montgomery, AL. He obtained a BA in art from Rhodes College in 2012 and received his MFA in Painting and Printmaking from the Yale School of Art in 2018. In 2018 Payne completed museum leadership training programs at The Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, OH) and The Studio Museum (Harlem, NY). While at Yale, Payne co-curated exhibitions centering marginal identities and their art practices, including Publishing Camp: Queering Dissemination (2017), Queering Space at Yale (2016), and Black Joy (2016). His work has been recently shown at SPRING/BREAK Art Show and Jenkins Johnson Projects (both in New York, NY), the CMPLX (Memphis, TN), and Diane Rosenstein Gallery (Los Angeles, CA). Payne is featured in New American Paintings (MFA Annual #135) and has been published in Observer, Vice, and The New Yorker.

Payne has served as an AmeriCorps volunteer in Memphis, TN, worked as a Wurtele Gallery Teacher at the Yale University Art Gallery, and taught as an adjunct instructor at the Shintaro Akatsu School of Design at the University of Bridgeport. He received the Gloucester Residency Prize in summer 2017 and was a spring 2020 Artist-in-Residence at Crosstown Arts (Memphis, TN). In addition to being named a Grant Wood Fellow, Payne is the inaugural recipient of the Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson Residency (Columbus, OH), which he will begin in summer 2021.

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LEARNING & ENGAGEMENT

Stanley Reads Community, reflection, and art drew people together during our Stanley Reads events throughout fall 2020.

The museum partnered with Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City to share the experience of reading Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel Homegoing. From across the US, people joined our bi-weekly Zoom meetings to discuss the characters and themes in the book. Gyasi, who earned her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, weaves a story of love, loss, and resilience that moved and challenged the Stanley Reads book club.

During our discussions, people expressed surprise, sorrow, anger, and affection for the characters. As we contemplated Gyasi’s words, we also considered other ways artists have dealt with family, identity, and the ramifications of slavery in their work. The Stanley’s rich collection presented us with other facets of these issues prevalent in Homegoing. For example, an Akua ba, or wooden doll made in the Asante style, informed our conversation about motherhood in the first two chapters.

Later, prints by Kara Elizabeth Walker, Elizabeth Catlett, and Glenn Ligon provided additional perspectives on domestic work, survival, and blackness/whiteness.

In anticipation of our spring book club, those registered for Stanley Reads had the opportunity to vote on our next book, which will focus on India. Stanley Readers chose At the End of the Century: The Stories of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Jhabvala spent over twenty-five years in India.

Her stories examine class, ethnicity, and belonging, in India and beyond. As we read her stories together, we look forward to grappling with some difficult questions, while also looking closely at works in the Waswo X. Waswo Collection of Indian Printmaking, and comparing Jhabvala’s perspective to that of writers born in India.

Stanley Reads is free and open to all.

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Monoprints by Lynn Youngberg Photos courtesy of Patti Youngberg

Stanley Creates Stanley Creates is an interactive program for children and teens to learn artmaking techniques using everyday materials. Taking inspiration from the museum’s collection, participants play in a variety of mediums to create their own masterpieces at home.

Lauren Linahon, a master’s candidate in art education at the College of Education, led two workshops in the fall.

She brought her experience teaching UI undergraduates and leading virtual workshops for United Action for Youth to create a collaborative, supportive, and fun atmosphere for everyone.

In September, Lauren introduced participants to monoprinting, a printmaking technique that results in a unique print. Lynn (13 years old), for example, created a vibrant double helix overlaid with undulating lines by applying a thick layer of crayon to wax paper, covering the wax paper with a blank sheet of paper, and drawing and rubbing on top of the paper with a dull pencil. The result is a dynamic print.

In October, Lauren showed kids how to marble paper using cooking oil, food coloring, and dish soap. This art project also provided a science lesson. Kids watched water-based food coloring expand through oil when they applied drops of dish soap to the food coloring. Dish soap molecules have both a hydrophilic end (meaning it dissolves in water) and a hydrophobic end (it is not water-soluble). This molecular structure helps push the food coloring across the surface of the water to produce swirling patterns. You can watch a clip of this science in action on our YouTube channel.

Lauren will lead two additional Stanley Creates programs in the spring: the first will feature star accordion books and the program later in the spring will be on how to build a 3D self-portrait. These online events are free and open to all.

Registration required at https://stanleymuseum.uiowa. edu/events 22

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LEARNING & ENGAGEMENT

Museum from Home On March 17, 2020, Senior Living Communities (SLC) Program Coordinator Amanda Lensing left the museum offices not knowing when or how she would present to older adults again. Within a week, Lensing began sending “Museum from Home” emails to SLC and older adult groups she had worked in person with. The mailing list grew over the following months. She picked a theme for each email and incorporated links and background information on the chosen subject.

The Stanley made its first steps to increase the SLC program’s reach and impact in late May. Joining with the Office of the State Archaeologist, UI Libraries, and UI Pentacrest Museums, the Stanley wrote an application for an Institute of Museum and Library Services CARES Act Grant. The grant project, titled Connected for Life: Objectbased Digital Programming to Foster Active Minds for Senior Living Communities, was one of 68 grant proposals chosen from 1,701 application requests. Connected for Life gives each of these organizations the opportunity to collaborate and find new links among their collections.

Connected for Life has four goals: 1) serve older adults and SLC in Iowa, populations especially vulnerable to COVID-19 and underserved in outreach and engagement programs; 2) increase participants’ sense of connection, engagement, and well-being and decrease feelings of isolation through synchronous virtual programs; 3) create a robust and vibrant web portal that responsively adjusts to audience needs based on assessment data; and 4) develop meaningful channels for coordinated programming between the world-class collecting units on campus.

Programs will be livestreamed and pre-recorded and available at lifelonglearning.lib.uiowa.edu in the coming months.

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Nancy Johns Photo by Dick Johns

CONTACT: Amanda Lensing and Elizabeth Reetz Co-Directors ui-connectedforlife@uiowa.edu lifelonglearning.lib.uiowa.edu

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STAFF SPOTLIGHT

Steve Erickson

T

he COVID-19 pandemic has perhaps redefined workplace flexibility forever. For Steve Erickson, the Stanley Museum’s Manager of Design and Installation, needing to be occupationally flexible is nothing new. “I spent the first twenty years of my career working as an artist and doing a variety of jobs to support myself,” he says. “I scored tests, painted houses, did construction, worked as a physical therapy aid, and restored antique furniture, among other things.”

Erickson is a painter, which, in addition to preparing him for the uncertainty of our current times, has been critical to his work at the Stanley. “I think the kind of visual thinking one does as a painter translates well into exhibition design,” he acknowledges. “Visual art is experienced all at once. Similarly, Self-portrait by Steve Erickson when you walk into a gallery it is the simultaneous experience of all the elements that conveys the meaning. As an artist I have explored a wide variety of styles and this has leant itself well to adapting to the variety of exhibitions I have installed and making the design reflective of the work being represented.”

Erickson works collaboratively with the Stanley’s curators on exhibition designs and manages all aspects of the physical installation of the galleries. It is nuts-andbolts-type work that includes moving and installing objects, painting and maintaining gallery spaces, overseeing lighting design, and dusting. “Art storage and transport of 24

art is also a big aspect of my job,” Erickson notes, an especially important responsibility as he and his colleagues work to return the Stanley’s collection from storage at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport back to Iowa City for the inaugural exhibition.

According to Erickson, his biggest task now is packing and moving the collection.

Though laborious, he has been enjoying the work: “I am finding it surprisingly satisfying in that it provides a concrete sense of accomplishment to see things progressing toward the move to a new building.”

When asked about the specific ways in which his adaptive skills have helped him weather the pandemic, Erickson first notes, “the pandemic has made me very grateful for my job as many people are now out of work and struggling.” He goes on to point out practical ways his department has responded to the pandemic. “For a while we were all working from home and we spent a lot of time pre-making things for packing and installation that we knew we would use later,” he says. “Now we are back working at the Figge with a small group of people.

We all wear PPE and are being as safe as possible.” Erickson, though, is at heart an egalitarian; he soon returns to the topic of the pandemic’s surfacing of persistent inequality and the role museums can play in creating a more just world. “Having supported myself doing working class jobs for the first twenty years of my working life I am very aware of how museums can be perceived as elitist institutions,” he says.

“I am interested in pushing for a future museum culture that is more inclusive with regards to class issues and helps to reduce the divisiveness in our country.”

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ADVISORY BOARD SPOTLIGHT

Dr. Elliott Sohn

M

ore than ever, arts education has become a major component of medical school curriculums.

Harvard Medical School, for example, found that training medical students in the visual arts can help them develop their clinical observational skills. Dr. Elliott Sohn, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and Director of Retina Fellowships at the University of Iowa, appreciates such synergies. He has encouraged and helped facilitate arts programming at the Department of Ophthalmology, including a well-received presentation with Dorothy Johnson, Roy J. Carver Professor of Art History, in 2018.

Dr. Sohn has lived in Iowa City for a decade now, practicing medicine as well as his other devotion. “I have a passion to nurture the arts in our Photo by Brice Critser community,” he says. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Englert Civic Theatre and is a founding member of Hancher Prelude, which engages young professionals and donors in four fun events a year at Hancher Auditorium.

He also makes space in his own home to foster Iowa’s creative communities: “I have enjoyed hosting several informal ‘art showings’ over dinner featuring some local artists.”

Dr. Sohn is a longtime admirer of the Stanley Museum of Art. “Despite arriving as a faculty member two years after the 2008 flood, the excellent reputation of the museum was already known to me,” he says. “Seeing what Lauren Lessing, the university, and our community is doing to rebuild the art museum and beyond is very exciting.”

As a new a member of the Stanley Museum of Art Advisory Board, Dr. Sohn notes that he is grateful for the opportunity to be part of the effort to rebuild the museum. “It is an honor to help advise the museum director/ staff/provost to achieve the museum’s mission,” he adds. He also looks forward to advancing initiatives he has launched at the medical campus, emphasizing that he is excited to help “cultivate the relationship between the museum and the university, as well as the hospital.”

“Despite arriving as a faculty member two years after the 2008 flood, the excellent reputation of the museum was already known to me. Seeing what Lauren Lessing, the university, and our community is doing to rebuild the art museum and beyond is very exciting.”

DR. ELLIOTT SOHN

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Virtual Wall Signing

This September, the Stanley community helped us turn our new home into a “signed original� by writing messages onto a virtual wall. The names and messages you submitted were transferred onto a sign that will be built into the structure before the construction team finishes its work.

Thank you for ensuring that our new museum is one of a kind!

Photos by Justin Torner 26

S TANLEY M U S E U M O F A RT

FROM THE UI CENTER FOR ADVANCEMENT Greetings!

This issue of our magazine includes stories about two important grants that the UI Stanley Museum of Art received this year from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

These grants will help ensure that Russell Construction can complete work on our new building by December 2021, and that museum staff can continue to bring programs to senior living communities.

Grants like these provide important resources for us. The awards sometimes come from a granting agency, and other times our generous supporters create them through a Donor Advised Fund (DAF).

Donors who establish DAFs do so for the sole purpose of supporting charities. These funds can provide a thoughtful and strategic way for you to meet your personal financial objectives and your philanthropic goals.

If you have a DAF, you can make a gift to the Stanley Museum of Art to support an initiative that is important to you. You also can designate our museum as the ultimate beneficiary of your DAF. In addition, you can maximize your giving by making a gift through an employer’s matching gift program. Visit foriowa.org/ways-to-give to find out if your company will match gifts made to the University of Iowa.

If you are interested in using your DAF to support the Stanley Museum of Art, or if you have questions about how to use a DAF to fulfill your philanthropic goals, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Susan Horan, Associate Director of Development The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art The University of Iowa Center for Advancement susan.horan@foriowa.org • 319-467-3408 or 800-648-6973 P.S. There is still time to have your name included on the MyMuseum campaign recognition wall in the new building!

Contact me or visit foriowa.org/mymuseum to learn more.

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University of Iowa

Stanley Museum of Art 150 NORTH RIVERSIDE DRIVE / OMA 100 IOWA CITY, IA 52242 319-335-1727 stanleymuseum.uiowa.edu

“ART ADDS MEANING TO LIFE. IT’S MORE THAN US; IT’S THE UNIVERSE.

”

HELP US BUILD A NEW HOME FOR I N S P I R AT I O N .

MY MUSEUM T H E B U I L D I N G C A M PA I G N FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA S TA N L E Y M U S E U M O F A R T foriowa.org/mymuseum

RAMON LIM, MD, PHD, AND VICTORIA LIM, MD

G I V E T O D AY !

UI PROFESSORS EMERITI | UI STANLEY MUSEUM OF ART SUPPORTERS The University of Iowa Center for Advancement is an operational name for the State University of Iowa Foundation. The State University of Iowa Foundation, Iowa Law School Foundation, and Iowa Scholarship Fund, Inc. are 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations soliciting tax-deductible private contributions for the benefit of The University of Iowa and are registered to solicit charitable contributions with the appropriate governing authorities in all states requiring registration. The organizations may be contacted at One West Park Road, Iowa City, IA 52242 or (800) 648-6973. Please consult your tax advisor about the deductibility of your gift. If you are a resident of California, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington,Sor West Virginia, TANLEY M U Splease E U Msee O FtheA full RT 28 disclosure statement at http://www.foriowa.org/about/disclosures/.