Fall 2012 | Number 61
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Fall 2012 | Number 61 Museum of Art and Archaeology University of Missouri Contents Mission Statement From the Director The Museum of Art and Archaeology advances understanding of our artistic and cultural heritage through research, collection, and interpretation. We help students, scholars and the broader community Last night I gave a tour of the Museum to a group of potential supporters— to experience authentic and significant art and folks who know the community well, but might know the Museum less well artifacts firsthand, and to place them in meaningful than we’d like. contexts. We further this mission by preserving, enhancing and providing access to the collections for the benefit of present and future generations. As always on such tours, I learned as much as the attendees. At the same time that I was telling them about the Museum—about the range and scope of its Museum Associates collections, the programs we offer, our history, and the backstories to many of In Support of the Museum of Art and Archaeology the iconic works in our collections—they were telling me what interested them, 2 Seeing the Divine in Hindu Art Officers: where their passions lay, and how they took the information provided and made it personally meaningful. I saw different Robin LaBrunerie, President Gary Upton, Treasurer members of the group respond to different parts of our mission, or quicken to different kinds of narratives that placed Jennifer Perlow, President-Elect Terri Rohlfing, Secretary individual works into a specific context. Some people were fascinated by the behind-the-scenes processes of a museum, Rolando Estévez and the Directors: others by the iconography of a painting, or the archaeological significance of an object in the Weinberg Gallery. 5 Genius of Vagía Tootie Burns Diana Groshong Annette Sobel Marcela Chavez Pam Huffstutter Scott Southwick Larry Colgin Patty King Gil Stone It’s a lesson worth relearning. While no museum can be all things to all people, it can’t be a single thing to all people either. Mark Koch Charles Swaney Different people have different learning styles, different interests, and different backgrounds that inform and influence the Special Exhibitions Juanamaria Cordones-Cook 7 Pat Cowden Elizabeth Kraatz Gary Tatlow way they perceive the Museum and its messages. Our role is less to communicate a single message to everyone (research Lisa Eimers Jennifer Larmie Anne Tuckley Nancy Gerardi Toni Messina suggests that’s nearly impossible) than to provide contexts that make works meaningful to the broadest range of visitors. Events Calendar Ken Greene Vicki Ott 8 That’s one reason we reach out to visitors in so many different ways—a range of exhibitions, presented in different ways Ex Officio Directors: Missouri Folk Arts Program and showcasing different periods, places and media, a wide array of public programs ranging from free films to children’s 10 Alex Barker, Museum Director and Executive Vice-President Bruce Cox, Assistant Director, Operations programs, from lectures to special events like Art in Bloom or the Haunted Museum. Over the past year we’ve worked with Mary Pixley, Curator, European and American Art local schools and storytellers to help elementary and middle-school students empathize with the lives of the people depicted End of Days: Real and Imagined Susan Langdon, Chair, Department of Art History and Archaeology in African-American art, with Freshman Interest Groups to help incoming University freshmen better appreciate the world 12 Mayan Worlds Ingrid Headley, Docent Representative of antiquity, with residents across the state to better understand the folk arts unique to the region, and with the elderly Honorary Directors: using art to help forestall the effects of Alzheimer’s. In the year to come our offerings will be just as diverse, with exhibitions Sites of Experience: Keith Crown and Patricia Atwater, Libby Gill, Osmund Overby, and Patricia Wallace examining the work of American watercolorist Keith Crown, art books from the Vigía collective by Rolando Estévez, medieval 13 the Landscape of New Mexico Hindu art of South Asia, portraiture on ancient coins, the fantastic woodcuts of Tom Huck, and the real-world concerns of Museum of Art and Archaeology the ancient Maya. 14 From the Educator Editorial Office: 1 Pickard Hall University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211 As a museum we offer exhibitions to delight the eye and feed the soul. But there’s more to the Museum than what meets Phone: (573) 882-3591 Fax: (573) 884-4039 Visit us online: http://maa.missouri.edu the eye. Balancing breadth and depth informs everything we do. The Museum not only holds a wonderful group of paintings Spotlight: Lion and Serpent 16 by Keith Crown, it also holds the complete set of his sketchbooks (nearly 140 of them), a marvelous and unmatched resource Editorial Staff: Bruce Cox, Editor for understanding this influential American watercolorist. We hold similarly deep and important collections of works from Kristie Lee, Graphic Designer 17 Museum Associates the Vigía collective in Matanzas, Cuba, and this fall the University of Missouri will host an international conference on the The magazine is published biannually by the Museum of Art and Archaeology, Vigía books and their significance. And over the last few years we’ve been steadily developing our painting collections in University of Missouri-Columbia, and is paid for through membership fees, donations and gift contributions to Museum Associates. specific areas, with acquisitions of works by Jessie Beard Rickly, Miriam McKinnie, Fred Conway, Joseph Delaney, and Robert Museum Galleries: MacDonald Graham, building strengths in areas uniquely our own. All of these efforts are aimed at helping us serve the Museum galleries display art and artifacts from six continents and more than five Tuesday through Friday: 9am to 4pm millennia. Lectures, seminars, gallery talks and educational programs associated needs of our audiences, and positioning us for the future to do more, better. Thursday Evenings until 8pm with permanent and temporary exhibitions provide a wide range of cultural and Saturday and Sunday: noon to 4pm educational opportunities for all ages. Come by and tell us how we’re doing. And I’ll see you at the Museum. Museum Store: The Museum of Art and Archaeology is located in Pickard Hall on historic Francis Tuesday through Friday: 10am to 4pm Quadrangle, at the corner of University Avenue and S. Ninth Street, on the University Thursday Evenings until 8pm of Missouri campus in Columbia, Mo. Saturday and Sunday: noon to 4pm MU does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability or status as a Vietnam Veteran. For more information, call Human Resources Closed: Services at: (573) 882-4256 or the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights. Mondays University of Missouri is an equal opportunity/ADA institution. University of Missouri Holidays and Christmas Day Alex W. Barker through New Year’s Day Cover [detail] Director Stele depicting Vishnu flanked by Lakshmi and Sarasvati Admission is FREE and open to the public Bangladesh, Pala period, ca. 12th century Basalt The Museum is ADA Accessible (79.138) Gift of Dr. Richard Nalin © Copyright 2012 Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri-Columbia Museum of Art and Archaeology, © Copyright 2012 divine subject matter. This rich corpus of Parvati, Durga, Kali, and Sarasvati are imagery provides instruction, support, represented. Together with these major and inspiration for millions of devout gods and goddesses, a selection of Hindu believers. lesser-known male and female deities is The exhibition features some of the also included. Among them are Surya, most important deities of the Hindu the sun god; Dharmaraj, a local hero pantheon. Vishnu and his ten avatars, turned divine; the snake especially Krishna, figure prominently. goddess Manasha; and Shiva, another male god of prime the goddess Shitala importance, is featured, as is his son, the who can both cause much loved elephant-headed Ganesha. and cure smallpox. HinduSeeing the Divine Art in The well-known goddesses Lakshmi, Samplings of the September 22 – December 16, 2012 Enthroned Vishnu with his wives and attendants India, Pahari School, 17th century Gouache on paper (78.257) Gift of Allan Gerdau Krishna playing a flute (Venugopala) South India, ca. 16th century Bronze (66.155) Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Eilenberg Jeffrey Wilcox Relying mainly on sacred religious texts From its beginnings Hindu art was Curator of Collections/Registrar wherein the exploits of the gods and created primarily to aid devotees in goddesses are told and retold, certain focusing their worship. Monumental tales and episodes became favorites for stone statues or relief sculptures were illustration, and standard iconographies positioned in or on temples, and large induism, one of the great were established for specific deities. cast bronze cult statues were set up for Hreligions of the world, These iconographies include certain public worship. Innumerable smaller has a long and rich history of depicting attributes, body postures, hand gestures, figurines have been made for installation Shiva Bhairava the divine in art. Originating in India hair styles, colors, animal associations, in household shrines so that devotees North central India, perhaps Rajasthan, in remote antiquity, it is a polytheistic and the like. Most of these elements are may offer personal devotion. Paintings, ca. 11th–12th century Sandstone system with a myriad of gods and imbued with deep religious symbolism. A tapestries, ritual objects, theatrical (86.21) goddesses. The challenge for artists visual vocabulary was thus built up, and masks, and other items bearing images Purchased with funds generated from gifts of Dr. and Lakshmi Mrs. Renato Almansi, Mr. and Mrs. Judson Biehle in was not a shortage of subject matter, once established, became solidified. This of deities have been created in various South India, Vijayanagar period, 15th century memory of Dean Martha Biehle, Mrs.