Majors Day on Tuesday!

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Don’t forget Majors Day on Tuesday, August 19, 2:30 – 4:00 p.m. in the University Art Gallery (OP 1114).  This is a day for all majors new to the Art Department (first-years, transfers, and others here this week) to meet the faculty and staff and learn more about the Department’s programs.  Students will also have a chance to meet with faculty in their respective areas (Art History, Studio Art, and Visual Communication) and have any advising questions answered as well.  There will also be treats and a good chance to socialize.  We’ll look forward to seeing everyone there!

 

 

 

Welcome, new students!

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Welcome to all new students:  first-year, transfer, everyone!  Those living in dorms will be moving in on Sunday, August 17 and starting Truman Week classes as well.  We are so happy that you’re all here and look forward to seeing you all both during Truman Week and in classes this fall.

Just as a reminder, Majors Day for the Art Department is Tuesday, August 19 from 2:30 – 4:00 p.m. in the University Art Gallery (OP 1114).  This is a day for all new students to get to know the programs, faculty, and staff in the Department of their chosen major.  We look forward to seeing all new Art majors there!  Any questions, please e-mail art@truman.edu.

 

Congratulations again, Lori Nix, and summer break for the blog!

The Art Department blog will be taking a break for the rest of the summer, but please come back in mid-August as we gear up for the new academic year and look forward to welcoming new first-year and transfer students.

However, in case readers missed the news earlier in the spring, we will repost the great news about alum Lori Nix winning a Guggenheim Fellowship!


The Art Department is very pleased and proud to announce that alumna Lori Nix (Art History and Studio Art) just been named a 2014 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow in the Creative Arts (Photography)!

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded by US Senator Simon Guggenheim and his wife as a memorial to a son who died in 1922.  As the Foundation website states, “….[it] offers Fellowships to further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions and irrespective of race, color, or creed.”  The Guggenheim Fellowships “are intended for men and women who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.”

Fellows include future winners of the Fields Medal, the Nobel Prize, and writers who have gone on to become Poets Laureate and include among their ranks hundreds of prominent creative individuals.

Those on campus in Kirksville will remember the recent exhibition of Nix’s work in the University Art Gallery (Fall 2013) as well as Nix’s great visit to and talk on campus during that exhibition.

To read more about and to see some of Ms. Nix’s work, please visit her website.

Faculty and Alumni at Renaissance Society of America annual meeting

Truman State University Art Department faculty and alumni participated in the recent Renaissance Society of America annual conference in New York City in late March, 2014.

Dr. Jasmine Cloud (alumna, Art History;  who just recently received her doctorate in Art History from Temple University) presented a paper entitled "In and Out of the Roman Forum:  Charting the Properties of Ss. Cosma e Damiano and S. Francesco Romana" based on her archival research on Roman architecture and urban layout.

In addition, Dr. Julia DeLancey (Art History) and Dr. John Garton (alumnus, Art History;  Associate Professpr of Art History at Clark University) co-organized a pair of sessions entitled "Harmonies and Disharmonies in Leonardo 's Approaches ot the Body".  In one of those sessions, Dr. Garton presented a paper entitled "Leonardo and Creative Ugliness" and Dr. DeLancey a paper entitled "On Bended Knee:  Leonardo da Vinci and the Anatomy of Devotion".  The sessions came out of a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, "Leonardo da Vinci:  Between Science and Art" held in Florence, Italy in the summer of 2012.  The Institute was organized by Dr. Francesca Fiorani (University of Virginia).

Finally, Dr. Ryan Gregg (alumnus, Art History:  Assistant Professor, Webster University) presented a paper entitled "Anachronism as Fact:  Vasari's Resurrection of the Porta San Gallo Monastery for Cosimo il Vecchio" in a session called "Reconsidering Premodern Accuracy:  Verisimilitude and Truth Claims".

Art History Alumna to Intern at the National Gallery (D.C.)

Congratulations to Art Department alumna Valerie Lazalier (Art History) let us know recently that she has received a competitive and coveted internship at the National Gallery in Washington D.C.  Valerie is currently finishing a dual masters degree in Information and Library Science and Art History at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.

Valerie had this to say about what she'll be up to during the internship:  "I will primarily work in the Gallery Archives gathering provenance information from historical documents relating to the collection of Lessing J. Rosenwald, one of the Gallery's founding benefactors. I will then use the data to create web content in support of the Rosenwald Project, a joint effort of the National Gallery of Art and the Library of Congress. During the nine weeks, I will also attend biweekly museum seminars held to introduce interns to the broad spectrum of museum work, and to Gallery staff, departments, programs, and functions."

Congratulations, Valerie!

Congratulations, Dr. Cloud!

Heartiest congratulations to alumna Jasmine (Fry) Cloud (Art History) who let us know that she recently received her PhD in the History of Art from Temple University!  More information on Dr. Cloud's recent work available here and here, and notice of her dissertation defense here.  Congratulations, Dr. Cloud!

If you are an alum and have news to share with us, we'd love to hear from you!  Please write to us at art@truman.edu.

Art Department alumna Lori Nix receives prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship

The Art Department is very pleased and proud to announce that alumna Lori Nix (Art History and Studio Art) just been named a 2014 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow in the Creative Arts (Photography)!  

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded by US Senator Simon Guggenheim and his wife as a memorial to a son who died in 1922.  As the Foundation website states, "….[it] offers Fellowships to further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions and irrespective of race, color, or creed."  The Guggenheim Fellowships "are intended for men and women who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts."

Fellows include future winners of the Fields Medal, the Nobel Prize, and writers who have gone on to become Poets Laureate and include among their ranks hundreds of prominent creative individuals.  

Those on campus in Kirksville will remember the recent exhibition of Nix's work in the University Art Gallery (Fall 2013) as well as Nix's great visit to and talk on campus during that exhibition.

To read more about and to see some of Ms. Nix's work, please visit her website.

 

Kansas-Missouri Renaissance Symposium

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Truman State University will host this year's Kansas-Missouri Renaissance Symposium on Monday, February 24 from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. in OP 2210.  The Symposium will feature four talks by art and architectural historians about their interdisciplinary research on Florentine and Venetian art and visual culture:

Dr. Saundra Weddle (Drury University):  "Architecture as a Tool of Resistance and Control at Sixteenth-Century Venetian Convents"

Dr. Niall Atkinson (University of Chicago):  "Florentia Illustrata:  digital mapping and the return of Renaissance geographies"

Dr. Douglas Dow (Kansas State University):  "Confraternal Entanglements:  Non-linear Networks of Patronage and Tenancy in Late Cinquecento Florence"

Dr. Sally Cornelison (University of Kansas):  "Recycling, Renaissance Style:  Vasari's Repurposed Religious Paintings"

The event has been generously sponsored by the Art Department, Medieval Studies Committee, Office of Intersiciplinary Studies, School of Arts and Letters, Sixteenth Century Journal, and University Art Gallery.

This event is free and open to the public.  We hope to see you there!

Last Chance to See Great WWI Exhibition in Library!

Students with WWI display sailor and pup tent behind

Ann Frydrych, Rebecca Meyer, Sarah Gann, and Anna Goodloe, in front of their World War I exhibit in Pickler Memorial Library.  Photo Credit here and below:  Sara Orel.

Last semester (Fall 2014) Dr. Sara Orel taught ART 428:  Topics in Art History:  Museums and Collecting. Students in that class did a variety of projects as their major assignment in the fall of 2014.  We will highlight a few of these in the spring semester (many of them are available to view at a variety of locations across campus). 

First up is an exhibition curated by majors in Art History and History.  This exhibit, on view until the end of January in the space outside the coffee shop in Pickler Memorial Library, focuses on World War I and the experiences of Kirksville residents and university alumni in that War.  Items, including a tent used on the battlefield, letters home from the troops, and a piece of hard tack, are interspersed with items of clothing such as helmets and boots, as well as reproductions of war posters and poppies from the Veterans of Foreign Wars.  Although 1917 was the year the United States entered the Great War, 2014 is the centenary of the start of the conflict and Truman will be offering several events and courses to commemorate the hundred year anniversary.  This exhibition, designed and installed by students in an Art History class, is the first of that series. 

As a reminder, this exhibition in Pickler Memorial Library will close January 31, 2014 so hurry over to see it before then!

Boots in WWI case

Boots worn by a soldier in World War I and poppies in memory of those who died.

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 Art History student Lynn Koch admires her fellow students’ installation in Pickler Memorial Library.