Art Collecting at the University of Illinois: A History and Catalogue

Scheinman, Muriel

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Description

Title

Art Collecting at the University of Illinois: A History and Catalogue

Author(s)

Scheinman, Muriel

Issue Date

1981

Department of Study

Art and Design

Discipline

Art History

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

Fine Arts

Language

eng

Abstract

• Within the context of other American institutions of higher learning that began to gather art in the nineteenth century, this dissertation examines the nature, history and significance of art patronage at the University of Illinois: the first section an account dating from the first regent's managing to form a Fine Arts Gallery in 1875 by soliciting funds from local townspeople and travelling to Europe at his own expense to purchase mainly plaster casts and photoengraved reproductions of famous masterpieces (meant to awaken appreciation and nourish "aesthetical tendencies"), to the eventual establishment in 1960-61 of a University art museum that has become, because of persevering administrators, faculty and their supporters, an educational and cultural resource second in Illinois only to the Art Institute of Chicago in the size of its collections and the number of its programs; the second part a fully illustrated catalogue of art objects once or still in, on and around campus structures or at Robert Allerton Park near Monticello, Illinois--done by artists such as Emmanuel Fremiet, Emile-Antoine Bourdelle, Carl Milles, Daniel Chester French, Lorado Taft, Adolph Weinman, Hermon Atkins MacNeil, Egon P. Weiner, Mirko (Basaldella), Louis H. Sullivan, Jo Davidson, Francis D. Millet, Buell Mullen, Glyn Warren Philpot, Barry Faulkner, J. Scott Williams, Ellen G. Emmet Rand, Charles W. Hawthorne, Francis O. Salisbury, Sidney E. Dickinson, Fred Conway, Paul Trebilcock and Leopold G. Seyffert.
• The School of Art and Design, founded officially in March 1877, nine years after the creation of the University itself (as the Illinois Industrial University), evolved from freehand drawing and clay modeling courses necessary in architectural/engineering curricula to remain a service facility precluding the acquisition of original works of art at an institutional level until the late nineteen-twenties. In this regard Appendix A consists of excerpts from letters and other documents which convey a sense of the frustrations faced by early art department members in their attempts to mount exhibitions, buy art and gain status in the academic hierarchy.
• Appendix B selectively lists works in the Krannert Art Museum: the gifts of Emily N. and Merle J. Trees, of Katherine Trees Livesey and George S. Trees, of Ellnora D. and Herman C. Krannert; paintings made for the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Projects (WPA/FAP); purchases from the four Contemporary American Art Exhibitions (1928-30) and the fifteen Festivals of Contemporary American Art Exhibitions (1948-74). (Bibliographic references draw attention to publications which relate to other of the museum's broad holdings.)
• Appendix C lists art not previously catalogued: in the Illini Union, Student Residence Halls, Afro-American Cultural House, Center for Advanced Studies and other locations. Excluded, as they exceed the scope of this study, are the myriad collections in the World Heritage Museum, the hundreds of Master of Fine Arts (MFA) paintings and sculptures on loan from the Art Department and the many miscellaneous prints, watercolors, photographs, book illustrations, rare books, playbills, posters, sheet music, wall hangings and other items of art displayed by, or in the possession of, various academic and non-academic units.

Graduation Semester

1981

Type of Resource

text

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