The lead-up to Peter Busa’s exhibition at the University Gallery in 1966 held some dramatic twists and turns. Busa was a professor of art at the University of Minnesota at the time. Just 3 months before his show was to be installed in the University Gallary, a vandal broke into his studio and slashed, burned, and otherwise damaged or destroyed many of Busa’s paintings.

Busa worked quickly to repair and repaint the canvases that could be salvaged, and created new works to fill in for destroyed ones. His solo show went forward as planned, somewhat miraculously.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of this story is that the “prime suspect” was another member of the University Art Department faculty… my, what a tangled web we weave.

Photos from the Peter Busa opening at the University Gallery

Newspaper clippings from the file about the exhibition and vandalism