SAAH Newsletter Vol 5.Pdf
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The University of Iowa School of ArtNEWSLETTER &History Volume 5 Fall 2003 Art Greetings Last Spring’s newsletter featured a report tion of a webcam, it is possible to follow on the ceremonial groundbreaking of the the daily progress of the construction at from new art building located across Riverside ftp://www.fsg.uiowa.edu/WebCam/ Drive from what must now be designated artcam.htm. The website also includes John “Old Art,” meaning the original 1936 seat archived weekly photos of the construc- of the School of Art & History on the tion progress. The new building will be Beldon banks of the Iowa River. This addition of a spatially integrated with the pond and new 67,000 square-foot structure to the visually connected to the limestone bluff Scott, six-building visual arts complex will be an when it opens in the summer of 2005. architectural monument no less prominent Interim on the University of Iowa campus than was Given the epochal importance of this the original building in its day. project for the School of Art & Art History, Director as the first comprehensive re-thinking of Actual construction on the new building the physical plant needs of the institution began in the late summer of 2003 and is since 1936, this fall’s newsletter departs moving forward nearly on schedule. The from the normal format and content. We pond has been temporarily drained, and are taking this occasion to think about the much excavation and removal of limestone history of the School in a series of mini bedrock has been accomplished. As we go histories of its component units. The to press with the newsletter in early accompanying photos, both historic and December, the foundations and basement contemporary, too, form visual essays in Inside this Issue walls are complete. Thanks to the installa- the history of the School. I hope you will New Building p.3 History pp. 4-6 Art History Division pp. 6-7 Studio Division pp. 7-14 Retirements pp. 17-18 Alumni Notes pp. 18-20 Obituary p. 20 Contact Information pp. 22-23 Computer-generated rendering of the dramatic cantilevered library wing of the new art building. Steven Holl Architects, New York. NEWSLETTER enjoy this opportunity to reflect on your time at the School, whether as undergraduate major, graduate stu- dent, faculty member, or friend of the visual arts at Iowa. I want to thank, in particular, members of 2 the Historical Memory Committee. Julie Hochstrasser, Bunny McBride, Steve Thun- der-McGuire, and Wallace J. Tomasini have worked hard to gather the information needed for this news- letter. Christopher Roy and Peter Feldstein undertook an extensive photographic campaign around the School, and the School’s adminis- trative staff members Architect Steven Holl (far left) and project associates Li Hu (center) and Martin Cox present the have provided massive model for the new Art Building to Professor Dorothy Johnson, Director of the School of Art and Art History (right) at Holl’s studio in New York. help in the editorial and production phase. College Art Association Annual Meeting Seattle, Washington (Feb. 18-22, 2004) Iowa Breakfast (Feb. 21, 7:30-9:00) The annual CAA Iowa Breakfast for students, alumni, faculty, and friends will be held at this year’s annual meeting in Seattle. We are scheduled for Sat- urday morning, Febru- ary 21, from 7:30- 9:00, in Room 416 at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel and Towers. All students, alumni, and friends are invited. Initial watercolor sketch by Steven Holl for new art building project. wire sculpture, Guitar (Museum of Modern Charitable Trust of New Art Building Art). Some features of the building still Belle Plaine, Iowa. reflect this source: the cantilever as neck Painting and Design One year after breaking ground across and the rounded façade as body of the studios on the third Riverside Drive from the School of Art and guitar. floor repeat the studio Art History, a new University of Iowa skylights of the 1936 architectural icon has begun to emerge. The art-building project has provided the building. A digital Steven Holl’s imaginative design visually opportunity for a comprehensive review of printing and editing bridges the space between the new and old the tools needed for creative inquiry in center for Photography buildings. Paralleling the original struc- the twenty-first century. Upon entering occupies the top floor ture, it features a two-story cantilevered each classroom and studio in the new of the cantilever. New wing reaching out from the central mass building, students will find state-of-the- media technology 3 and stretching above Hutchinson Quarry art digital technology side by side with enfolds the entire pond. The pre-patinated exterior steel traditional studio disciplines. As with the project. cladding, too, will harmonize with the red School’s original facility, this new building brick of the original building. But the inventively considers how education in art Linking the three architect’s concept also spans a temporal and art history might be more for students floors of the building, dimension. In passing between the old and and more for artistic practice and histori- a self-supporting the new buildings, students and alumni cal inquiry. staircase rises from the will understand how Holl’s design ground floor Interdis- contextualizes the present in the past Adjacent to the entrance on Riverside ciplinary Community with reference to an enduring visual Drive is a gallery serving the exhibition of Forum. This welcoming education, which, for almost seventy both student work and the work of visit- space and dominant years, has included outdoor drawing ing artists. On the second floor a 225-seat visual element of the classes under the nearby limestone bluff. auditorium provides for survey classes in interior is enhanced by the history of art. Connected to this large exhibition spaces Holl has to his credit the Helsinki Kiasma classroom the Mansfield Media Theater for surrounding the Museum of Contemporary Art, a new art and technology innovation is the first staircase as it spirals dormitory at MIT, and a major wing of the facility of its kind in the country and will upward. This towering Nelson-Atkins Museum. He conceptualized provide a site for pedagogical experimen- atrium celebrates the his design for the new art building as a tation and interdisciplinary interaction vitality of the School’s work of art in itself and took as his initial and performance. This room has already pioneering concept of inspiration Picasso’s 1912 sheet-metal and been named by a gift from the Mansfield seamlessly uniting art history and studio practice, thus perpetu- ating the “Iowa Idea” first embodied in the historic original building. More information about the new building and naming opportuni- ties can be found at the University of Iowa Foundation website: www.GoodBetterBestIowa. org/art/ Atrium staircase, Interdisciplinary Community Forum, new art building. Ars Longa and “Old Art” The last time the School’s architectural needs as a whole were taken into consider- ation was almost seventy years ago when 4 a new art building, funded in part by the Carnegie Foundation and the US Public Works Administration, united for the first Art Building, University of Iowa, completed in fall of 1936. Architect: George Horner. time under a single roof faculties in studio art and art history. University architect George Horner’s 1936 design rose on the bank of the Iowa River following a plan like that of Palladio’s Villa Emo at Fanzolo along the Brenta canal near Venice, with its central dwelling and flanking agricultural sheds connected to the main building by arcaded loggias. The center block of Horner’s building contained art history classrooms, a library, and an exhibi- tion gallery, whereas the rooms behind the The original building for the Department of Art under construction 1934-1936. arcaded ranges and the pavilions at each end housed studios for the James Lechay, Eugene Lundins, Mauricio economy of the state. It was in this era production of art. The Lasansky, H.W. Janson, John Rupert during the Great Depression and precisely design thereby re- Martin, and William Heckscher joined the within the walls of “Old Art” that Iowa flected the combina- faculty. A summer institute established by and the arts became associated terms. tion of history/theory the Department of Art’s chair, Lester and practice embodied Longman, attracted major artists to Iowa Now that construction of the new art in the new curriculum City and made Iowa a leading center for building is underway we turn our atten- of the School. the training of artists and artist/teachers. tion to the second phase of the larger No doubt the Art Building’s evocative art- project of restoring and re-programming The early decades of historical allusions, as announced in the “Old Art.” Our aim is to return this vener- the School were a proud Horatian inscription “Ars Longa Vita able architectural monument of art pro- golden age as nation- Brevis Est” above the portal on the river duction and analysis to its former splendor ally prominent artists façade, were intended to remind users of while up-dating its spaces to meet the and scholars such as the cultural tradition considered the basis requirements of contemporary art and art Grant Wood, Philip of art, but the reference to a working farm history pedagogy, especially digital tech- Guston, Stuart Edie, also echoed sympathetically the agrarian nology. the creative processes of art production. The “Iowa This was the historic mission of Iowa’s Idea” School of Art and Art History. The period of the 60s, 70s, and 80s saw The radical notion that the splitting of art departments at many artists should be universities into completely separate units educated in a liberal of studio art (often located in a college of arts context derived fine arts) and art history (usually kept in from John Dewey’s a college of liberal arts).