University’s Permanent Art Collection a Permanent Gem

  Hidden away in the deep, dark depths of Griffiths lies an art lover’s paradise. The creations of Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, Auguste Rodin, and Milton Avery highlight St. Lawrence University’s permanent art collection.  

  Cathy Tedford and Carole Mathey, the director and assistant director of the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery, have, combined, dedicated 35 years to the preservation, cataloguing, and general management of St. Lawrence University’s permanent art collection.

   Imagine a room filled with the mind wanderings of some of the most prestigious and diverse artists of the world and you have the SLU permanent art collection. Behind a maze of locked doors, with incredibly intimidating padlocks, a myriad of artistic creativity can be found.  

   The collection was begun in the late nineteenth century and has continued mostly through the generous donations of alumni. The first complete inventory, however, was only begun in 1961 under the supervision of Dr. Harlan H. Holladay. 

   “The university has always had art,” said Mathey of St. Lawrence University’s artistic heritage.

    Over 7,000 artifacts are housed in this room, waiting to be incorporated into an exhibit at the Brush gallery or integrated into a class curriculum. Row after row of industrial size floor to ceiling iron racks hold incredibly influential paintings, prints, and photographs.

    The most recognizable work in the collection is one edition of Andy Warhol’s soup can series. The composition consists of a Campbell’s Manhandlers Scotch Broth soup can centered in an off-white canvas. At the time of release Warhol’s use of bold reds and yellows contrasted with the popularity and interest in more classical European, painterly styles. 

    One of the more geographically relevant collections that the university has purchased is a compilation of Inuit prints. Simplistic renditions of wildlife in bold, single colors are composed as silhouetted stencils. The nature-themed cut outs of these seemingly back-to-basic prints emphasize the intimate relationship the Inuit culture shares with their environment.

   The most impressive aspect of the university’s permanent collection however, is the extensive, diverse, and influential collection of photographs. As illustrated in the catalogue Photographs at St. Lawrence University, , the university’s photograph collection, almost 1,000 works strong, includes over “600 individual portraits and 28 portfolios, series, and artist’s books consisting of over 325 photographs.”  

   Alumni Michael E. Hoffman ‘64 and Doris M. Offermann ‘34 played an integral role in the establishment of St. Lawrence University’s collection of photographs. Both wished to cultivate a collection that students and professors could draw on to provide multidisciplinary research for classes.

   Among the portraits, still lives, and abstract compositions are two breathtaking Ansel Adams photographs. In his quest to document the fading magnificence of the undeveloped American west, Adams captured a beauty amongst the small shanty towns that rivaled the steadfast, established boundaries of beauty in nature previously defined by artistic masters like Watteau, Cole, and Lorrain.

   The first of these, entitled Moonrise, centers a full moon over a noble mountain ranger in Hernandez, New Mexico. Adams creates a sense of longing in the viewer for a more natural, simplistic way of life devoid of the hustle and bustle of big city living.

   The second is a landscape of Mount Williamson in Sierra Nevada, California.  Adams’s position amongst a field of boulders makes the mountain range look like an anthill.  He shrinks the Sierra Nevada mountain range to a slight hump any mortal could leap in a single bound.

   The work of Yousuf Karsh, a famed celebrity photographer who worked through the latter half of the twentieth century, is also found in the university’s permanent photograph collection. His Portrait of John Fitzgerald Kennedy memorializes an inspirational American leader. Forty years after his term in office and tragic assasination, the regal face of this man is still recognized by every American man, woman, and child and is a foundation in pop icons.

   The sequential black and white frames of Eadweard Muybridge, one of the founding fathers of the photographic genre and the man responsible for the development of stop – motion photography, act as reminders of a time when Facebook photo albums and digital cameras did not exist. His series Woman Doing Washing in a Tub features a nude woman performing everyday chores but emphasizes her movements to demonstrate the newfangled abilities of the camera.

   An even more historically intrinsic photograph in the university’s permanent collection is The Steerage by Alfred Stieglitz. The composition is divided horizontally into two sections: the top shows the sneering passengers of a steamer leering down at lower class passengers of the steamer in the bottom half of the composition. Taken in 1907, scenes like this one captured by Stieglitz were commonplace across the world as immigrants fled domineering governments for their shot at the American dream.

   “The photograph collection really is the strength of the collection,” providing an invaluable catalog of diverse images for the benefit of anyone associated with St. Lawrence University.  

    In addition to acquiring the works of professional artists, the administrators of the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery make a point of purchasing a number of student works each year.  

   The most recent student additions to the university’s permanent collection are from the previous exhibit from Professor Dane’s Interaction of Color class. A set of seven recreations of master works using colored paper were bought after the exhibit ended.

   Junior Steffi Chappell’s reproduction of a Monet flower-scape was bought by the university.  “It’s great that the university is willing to purchase work done by students in addition to professional artists’ work,” Chappell said of the opportunity.  

“As a student artist, it’s extremely exciting to have something that I’ve done in a permanent collection. It’s something quite exhilarating; it was very nice of them,” she said.

In addition to providing culturally intriguing exhibits, the main purpose of St. Lawrence University’s permanent art collection is to work hand in hand with classes to reiterate the university’s liberal arts tradition.  

If students are interested in research opportunities the entire photograph collection can be viewed at the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery website (http://www.stlawu.edu/gallery) and appointments can be made with Cathy Tedford (ctedford@stlawu.edu) for further inquiries.