FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SUMMARY: Vassar's Loeb Art Center gathers work from 65 private collections; college loyalty brings masterpieces to public attention
CONTACT: Diane Zucker, Associate Director of College Relations, 914-437-7404, [email protected]
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. (January 22, 1999) -- Vassar loyalty is bringing a number of previously unexhibited masterpieces to public attention at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (FLLAC). Seven decades worth of collectors -- Vassar alumni and several friends of the college -- have brought some of their finest works together for an exhibition which will open in April. Titled "Refining the Imagination: Tradition, Collecting, and the Vassar Education," the exhibition will include works of painting, drawing, sculpture, decorative arts, printmaking, and photography from 65 private collections.
The exhibition, which is being presented in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Friends of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, will run from April 24 to September 19, 1999. The Friends is a 1000-member organization that provides funding and other support to the art center.
Among the 150 works in the exhibition are examples of Chinese ceramics from the Han and Tang dynasties as well as pre-Columbian figures and masks; paintings by Cole, Church, Heade, Chase, Pissarro, Munch, Matisse, Munter, O'Keeffe, Dove, and Bleckner; drawings, watercolors, and pastels by Fra Bartolommeo, Zuccaro, Canaletto, Homer, Degas, Cezanne, Hopper, Tiepolo, and Warhol; prints by Bellange, Rubens, Munch, Degas, Picasso, and Johns; and sculptures by de Vries, Noguchi, Arp, Caro, Rickey, Hammons, and Stella.
"My Vassar education, provided the basis for an intense and lifelong interest in art which I have found extremely enriching," said noted collector Anne Hendricks Bass of New York City. Bass, a Vassar graduate from the class of 1963, is lending a Degas pastel of a dancer to the show.
For Steven Hirsch, a graduate of the Vassar class of 1971 and president of King World Media Sales, a lifelong passionate interest in art began at Vassar when he chose to take an art history course to fulfill his credit requirements. Hirsch was so inspired by his experience that art collecting quickly became "a passion and a hobby." "I came to Vassar with zero interest in art and left a collector," he said. Hirsch, who donates at least one piece every year to the Loeb collection, is committed to helping the gallery increase its holdings of American art. For this show, he is lending the FLLAC a study for a post office mural by Andree Ruellen and an abstract oil painting by German-American artist Konrad Cramer.
Anne Jones, a graduate of the Vassar class of 1943 and a former chair of the Junior Council of the Museum of Modern Art, believes in the importance of access to original art for students. "It's part of the original idea going back to (founder) Matthew Vassar," she said. Jones is lending a drawing by Paul Klee, an 18th century drawing by G.D. Tiepolo, and a 16th century engraving by Pieter de Jode. "Selections in this show exhibit a very broad range compared to earlier exhibitions and show how the interest in art and the collecting ability of alumni have increased," Jones said. "Everywhere we go we find Vassar people in the arts, on boards, and collecting. It's just amazing."
"Among the variety of works in the exhibition, the common thread is Vassar," said James Mundy, the Anne Hendricks Bass director of the FLLAC and himself a 1974 Vassar graduate. "Each lender in the exhibition will have arrived from the education to the art via a different path, but it's more than a coincidence that so many knowledgeable collectors around the country share one thing in common -- Vassar in their pasts."
Vassar was the first college in the country to have an art gallery. It opened in 1865 with a collection of original paintings, drawings, and prints to complement the core curriculum. In a report in 1864 on behalf of the Committee on the Art Gallery, trustee Reverend Elias Magoon presented the argument for instructing Vassar students with the aid of original works of art to be housed in a space for that purpose. Over the next 130 years, the collection and curriculum grew in tandem and constantly returned to the need for the real to supplement the theoretical. For many Vassar students, this combination of pedagogy, original work, and human example made a lasting impression.
"The Vassar alumni represented in this exhibition came to collecting in various ways -- through travel, relationships, buying the soon-to-be-famous at opportune moments, or, means permitting, buying at the top of the market. Whatever the individual considerations, the recognition of the ineffable nuances among what is 'good,' 'better,' and 'best' had been reinforced by a succession of demanding faculty and an exposure to the real thing," said Mundy.
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is located on the Vassar College campus. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free and the gallery is wheelchair accessible. For additional information, call (914) 437-5237 or visit the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center Web site at http://vassun.vassar.edu/~fllac/. Vassar, founded in 1861, is a residential, coeducational, liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., located in the scenic Hudson River Valley.
###
RSS