BY JAN SWOOPE
While most area art aficionados are aware Mississippi University for Women hosts exhibitions in the Eugenia Summer Art Gallery in the Art and Design Building on campus, some may not know the university holds an extensive and diverse permanent art collection.
MUW’s fall gallery season showcases interesting works from that valued resource Tuesday, Aug. 14, by opening a show titled “Collections Within the Collection” in the gallery. While there will be no opening reception, a free lunchtime gallery talk by art professor and gallery director Alex Stelioes-Wills on Monday, Aug. 20, will offer insight into pieces chosen for this exhibit.
“The show’s theme allows the gallery to highlight some works that are new to students and regular visitors, as well as focus on more familiar works that haven’t been shown in the recent past,” said the director.
Nearly 1,000 works of art, as well as papers and objects, collected since the late 1940s make up the permanent collection.
“Very few small public universities have art collections of such breadth,” remarked Stelioes-Wills.
The exhibit will include Ukiyo-e prints, unique Japanese wood block prints of the 17th to 20th century. It will also feature selections of Works Progress Administration prints, including work by Basil Hawkins, Hugh Botts and Maybel W. Jack.
Items from the Copeland collection in the show include prints of Walter Anderson and the Anderson family. Newly restored screen prints from the Cityscapes collection will be displayed, too, as well as works representing MUW’s history in the arts, by faculty such as Ralph Hudson, Eugenia Summer, Mary Evelyn Stringer, Larry Feeney and Thomas Nawrocki.
“And a selection of our ‘big names,’ such as Kathe Kollwitz, Pierre Bonnard and Alberto Gacometti, will be included,” noted Stelioes-Wills.
“We start off every gallery season with an exhibition of works from the permanent collection because it is part of our service to our students, the campus and the community,” he stated. “And for the campus and the community this is a once-a-year chance to see a real Matisse, or a real Chagall, or a real Marie Hull.”
“Collections Within the Collection” will be on display through Sept. 6. The gallery is open to the public Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Punch and chips will be served in the gallery foyer Aug. 20 at 11:30 a.m., before the 12:10 p.m.-12:50 p.m. gallery talk.
Other shows scheduled for the fall semester are a faculty exhibit opening Sept. 12, “Intersections of Gender and Place” opening Oct. 11, the Kappa Pi Art in Autumn Auction Nov. 3, and a senior exhibition Nov. 7.
For more information, contact the MUW Department of Art and Design, 662-329-7341.
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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