Once upon a time… the negatives of installation photos taken of the exhibit, “Once Upon a Time: Illustrations of Children’s Tales From Around the World” were not rolled up and bound by a rubber band.
In context of the included note, and upon unraveling the now accordion-ized negatives, it appears as if the exhibit was held in the foyer of Northrop Auditorium:
The assembled “Northrup Mall” brochure for the Cass Gilbert exhibition.
In 1982, the University Gallery’s Cass Gilbert: Minnesota Master Architect exhibition was touring around the region. According to the catalog, the exhibition was the first one to focus on his Minnesota years. Cass Gilbert was a world-renowned architect who grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota and designed many famous buildings throughout the country, including the Minnesota State Capital, the Woolworth Building in Manhattan, and the United States Supreme Court Building. He also designed the general scheme of the Northrop Mall at the University of Minnesota—the heart of the East Bank of campus and very familiar to all students here. The University Gallery stood at the head of the mall in Northrup Auditorium, and the effects of Gilbert’s design were surely felt there on a daily basis. (Now the Weisman Art Museum stands just across the street from the mall).
To illustrate Gilbert’s design concept more concretely, the University Gallery offered a very interesting brochure—one could cut and assemble it into the three-dimensional shape of the mall design. This activity was clearly aimed at kids, but I also had a good time assembling one of the many leftover brochures we found in the files (that’s the uncut version on the left). The explanatory text for the innovative “Archipops” brochure states:
We want to encourage children of all ages to better understand their built environment… Archipops is a chance to examine one significant design and learn to ask some questions about it. The model of Cass Gilbert’s Mall is a tool for understanding a talented architect’s solution to the question how to organize the campus of the University of Minnesota.
The Archipops brochure and the cover of the exhibition catalog.
As WAM staff prepare to re-open next month following a year-long closure in which the existing museum facility received a face-lift and addition, it is an interesting occasion that we at the Archives are processing the very boxes that document the initial planning and physical build of the Frank Gehry designed museum which resides on the East Bank of the U of M-Twin Cities campus.
The following photos were found amongst the folders and contents that later filled BOX 174. A folder titled, “New Building: Site planning” was paper-clipped to the photographs. The date stamp on the photos give a clue to the year they were taken…
Can you identify what is missing from the following photos?
The University of Minnesota Art Museum cordially invited visitors to view the exhibitions, The Woodblock Prints of B.J.O. Nordfeldt and Emily Nordfeldt’s Legacy: Paintings, Drawings and Prints of B.J.O. Nordfeldt at a reception held Sunday, February 17, 1991, which included a gallery talk, woodblock printing demonstration, and tea, sherry and light refreshments.
A large collection of Nordfeldt’s works can be found in WAM’s permanent collection.
The artist Seong Moy was hired at the University as an Art Lecturer for the spring quarter of 1950-1951. As was customary for visiting artists in the Department of Art, an exhibition of Moy’s work was displayed at the Gallery during his appointment (exhibit dates: May 3-June 15, 1951).
To learn more about Moy, I turned to the Archives of American Art, which has a vast collection of oral history interviews with American artists. I found a comprehensive oral history interview with Moy (the transcript is accessible on their website) in which I learned of his upbringing in China, immigration to Minnesota, development as an artist at the St. Paul School of Art and influences of other artists on his training, war service, teaching, and his time in New York with the Art Students League, amongst other topics…
As it turns out I didn’t need to refer to an external source to find more information on Moy, as there is another interview with the artist that is contained right here at the University – in the WAM collection. The transcript of the interview was found in Box 3, in a folder titled, “Seong Moy, Prints and Oils, May 3-June 15, 1951.” Clues from the transcript itself indicate the particulars behind the interview. The transcript is titled, “Critically Speaking” and is dated as “Thursday, April 26, 1951.” A time of, “2:00” is also indicated.
An article in the February 3, 1951 edition of the MN Daily titled, “KUOM Adds New Discussion Series on Entertainment,” indicates that “Critically Speaking” was a daily radio broadcast that featured “discussions on art, movies, radio, television, books and the theater. ” This particular broadcast of Critically Speaking begins with an introduction of current exhibitions and promotion of exhibitions that were forthcoming by a speaker identified as “Betty.” This is likely Betty Maurstad, a curator at the University Gallery.
Betty: … but the highlight of our spring exhibition program will be an exhibition of work by Mr. Seong Moy – which will open on May 3rd – just exactly one week from today. Mr. Moy, who is the visiting artist at the University of Minnesota during this spring quarter, has graciously accepted our invitation to be with us on the program this afternoon and so, at this time, I would like to introduce: Mr. Seong Moy.
Seong: How do you do.
Betty: You know, Mr. Moy – we’re really very much excited about your forthcoming exhibition at the University Gallery – and we’re delighted that you could take time from your teaching duties to be with me this afternoon – so you can tell me something about – oh, about your work – and about yourself.
Here are a few pages from the broadcast Critically Speaking, featuring artist Seong Moy:
View works by Seong Moy in the Weisman’s permanent collection in the Digital Content Library.
In 1950, the University Gallery announced it would be holding it’s first national print exhibit, inviting artists from across the country to submit entries for competition of prizes of up to $600 (UM News Release, September 20, 1950: Digital Conservancy).
“Each artist who wishes to exhibit may enter two prints that he has executed sometime within the last 18 months…The one dollar entry fee and entry blank must be sent by Nov. 10 to the University Gallery…”
A Dec 4, 1950 UM News Release (Digital Conservancy) announced the winning prints, which were displayed in the Gallery through the end of January and became part of the Gallery’s permanent collection.
(Select the hyperlinks below to view the purchased artwork at the Digital Content Library).
*A folder titled, “First National Print Annual Exhibition, Dec. 6, 1950-Jan. 19, 1951” can be found in Box 3 of the WAM archival collection at the University Archives.
Previously we shared in invitation to a talk related to a past exhibit. This month’s invitation offers an evening of scenic design, vaudeville, a light supper and dancing in celebration of a past exhibit…
In the mid-80s, the University acquired the “Twin City Scenic Collection,” which consisted of over a thousand renderings, sketches and models from the Twin City Scenic company of Minneapolis. As indicated by a U of M press release from 1985 (Digital Conservancy) former Twin City Scenic Studio president, W.R. Brown, brought the collection to the University. The studio was established in 1896 and was located in the Bijou Theatre. From vaudeville to the circus, this theatre contributed greatly to the Twin Cities theatre scene. The exhibit, and related programming, conducted in 1987, brought to light this local highlight.
Installation drawing for the John Rood sculpture Return of John Brown
The University Gallery assisted with the installation of two John Rood sculptures in the National American Bank in Minneapolis in 1975. (Rood was a professor of art at the University if Minnesota from 1944-1946.) On the surface this is not a particularly interesting topic, but I quite liked these installation drawings I found in the files. The carefully rendered drawings show the sculptures with a stylishly-dressed customer for scale, and are interesting drawings by themselves. The attached typed captions detail how each sculpture will be mounted: “The sculpture’s plate is mounted on top of a column which is secured to a rectangular, weighty platform. The material is walnut stained birch plywood.”
Installation drawing of a John Rood sculpture, and photographs of the two sculptures
In the early years of the Gallery, personnel consisted of the curator, Ruth Lawrence, and to those who are referred to in the archival records as, “federal students.” This title is written in pencil on the back of a photograph in Box 3:
The Federal Students employed at the Gallery were part of the National Youth Administration (NYA), a division under the Works Progress Administration that provided work-study income to students and other financial support to youth in the years that followed the Great Depression.
Box 101 contains a folder titled, “Gallery Procedures” in which resides the document, “Instructions to Federal Students.” From the instructions, we learn of what the duties of the Federal Students were, “As noted above, the departments with which you will be mainly concerned are (2) Art Reference Room, (4) the Fine Arts Room, (11) the Galleries.“
In the foreword to a bound gallery report compiled in 1939, Ruth Lawrence provides further description of the “federal students,”
“The N.Y.A. students were wholly untrained and those assigned often came to us at first disinterested in the work, and great deal of patience was needed in training them for the tasks they were to do… “
Other included documentation reveals the position requests that were made to the Federal Student Work Project in 1936-1937:
Secretarial – shorthand typing
poster work – art training-printing
journalism – handle publicity work
take charge of print room and art books, print file – graduate students in art if possible, afternoons free
collect materials on artists for their works for loan print collections – must have fine arts training
finish and make picture frames – carpentering and painting, packing and unpacking for gallery and lifting hanging exhibitions
guard duty – interest in art, so as to answer questions in gallery, two may be women for fine art room.
An example of the duties performed by federal students is found on a Federal Student Daily Report,
In the same 1939 gallery report, Ruth reflected,
“…The task was tremendous and it was fraught by almost insurmountable hazards due to the inaccurateness caused by ignorance of the material handled and the fact that the students were attempting tasks which required trained skill and knowledge. It was only through patient and laborious instruction that they could carry on with any degree of efficiency. However, without the excellent cooperation and enthusiasm of these students and a determination to build the Gallery into a fine thing, this task would have been hopeless.”
Robert Motherwell was featured in the University Gallery in 1965, in a traveling exhibition from the Museum of Modern Art. Motherwell was part of the New York School (which included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning) and his work is likewise in the Abstract Expressionist vein. His distinctive style of painting with rich black blobs and swaths is on display in this poster for the show, and in the photographs from the opening.
The press release from the Gallery describes Motherwell and his style:
Robert Motherwell, one of the foremost contemporary painters, has developed along with his painting a unique eloquence and profundity in the use of collage. Subtleties of feeling and a spirit of tempered freedom are richly stated through the combination of papers and painting. This extraordinary sensitivity and cultivation of style are also shown in his drawings.
The Weisman Art Museum still has in its collection an important piece from Motherwell, called Mural Fragment. This piece caused some controversy when it first came to the University in 1965, to be displayed in the Duluth student center. Some students and faculty petitioned for its removal, stating “We feel a better example of modern art could have been selected, rather than this crude daub that looks like a deformed octopus alongside of two decayed dinosaur eggs.” Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. The gallery director kept the painting up.
Read more about Motherwell and Mural Fragment here.
The Motherwell opening at the U Gallery
Press release and news clipping from The Daily