Two exhibitions showcase donated artwork

4:42 p.m., Jan. 23, 2004--Two current shows, both on exhibit at the University Gallery through Friday, March 19, highlight artwork donated to the University.

The exhibit “John Sloan and Gertrude Käsebier: Portrait and Self-Portrait” showcases portraits of famous “Ashcan School” painter John Sloan as seen through the lens of early 20th-century photographer Gertrude Käsebier, while the exhibit “Modern/Post-Modern: Recent Gifts to the University of Delaware” highlights works given to the University within the past 10 years.

Janet Broske, University Gallery curator, said she believes that the two exhibits, while different in scope, work together as companion shows. Both feature gifts to the University, and both highlight prints and the print-making process.

The Sloan exhibit highlights Käsebier’s artistic technique with both the gum bichromate and platinum print process, while the exhibit of recent gifts highlights a variety of work created through various print-making processes, including traditional and digital photography, serigraphy, lithography and aquatinting.

“Any time you do a recent acquisition show, you have to first of all determine what ‘recent’ is,” Broske explained. “Then, you have to figure out if you should do a show of everything, or if you should try to find specific works. All the pieces in the ‘Recent Gifts’ show were acquired approximately within the past 10 years, and it just happened that a number of these gifts fell into the theme of contemporary images on paper. That really created the thread for the exhibition.”

The “Recent Gifts” exhibit includes works by artists Otis Tamasauskas, Nan Golden, Tom Wesselmann and Ilya Bolotowsky, among others.

According to Broske and Tim Goecke, head exhibition designer, the recent acquisitions come from a wide range of sources, including former students, gallery volunteers and dealers from throughout the mid-Atlantic region. “We often get gifts from master of fine arts students who want to give something back to the University of Delaware but also want to have their work on deposit in a permanent collection,” Broske said.

The photographs in the Sloan/Käsebier exhibit—also all donations to University from Käsebier’s great, great grandson and Sloan’s second wife Helen Farr Sloan—are just a sampling of the 185 Käsebier photographs in the University’s Permanent Collection.

“Käsebier isn’t in any standard art history book,” Goecke explained, “but she is an extremely important figure in pictorial photography. The nice thing about the Käsebiers [on display] is that there are six versions of one piece, so you can follow the process from when Käsebier started out to where she went all the way through, just experimenting.”

After the exhibits come down in March, the works remain available for scholarship purposes. “The nice thing about the storage is that a student doing a thesis on pictorial photographs can come and get up-close and personal with the works,” Broske said. “Any time you can come in contact with a work of art, you get an enhanced appreciation for it.”

The University Gallery is located in the second floor of Old College at the corner of Main Street and North College Avenue in Newark. Gallery hours are 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Wednesday; and 1-4 p.m., Saturday and Sunday. The gallery is closed Mondays. Both shows are free and open to the public. For more information, call 831-8242.

Article by Becca Hutchinson
Photos by Kathy Atkinson

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