News Article

 By Peter Tormey
 Images Courtesy the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Gonzaga University’s Jundt Art Museum is among 183 college and university art museums nationwide chosen to participate in an unprecedented gift from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Warhol (1928-1987), a legendary and iconic figure in the American movement of Pop Art and a major influence in avant-garde photography, film and music, set up the foundation as his dying wish to advance the visual arts.

The gift to the college and university art museums was made through the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program in honor of the Foundation’s 20th anniversary. The gift consists of 28,543 original Warhol photographs valued in excess of $28 million. Donations to the Jundt Art Museum include 106 original Polaroid photographs and 50 original black-and-white gelatin silver prints by Warhol. The Gonzaga gift includes photographs of Dorothy Hamill, 1977; Princess Caroline of Monaco, 1983; Sonia Rykiel, 1986; Tom Seaver, 1977; Sean Lennon, 1985; Liza Minnelli, undated; Valentino, undated; Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono and unidentified people, undated.

Foundation President Joel Wachs said the aim of the Photographic Legacy Program is to provide greater access to Warhol’s artwork and processes, and to enable a wider range of people from communities nationwide to view and study this important yet relatively unknown body of Warhol’s work. The program offers institutions that do not have the means to acquire works by Warhol the opportunity to bring a significant number of photographs into their permanent collections, while allowing those institutions that have Warhol’s works to enrich the breadth and depth of their holdings. Each participating institution will receive approximately 50 original Polaroid photographs and gelatin silver prints selected by Jenny Moore, curator of the Photographic Legacy Program.

“A wealth of information about Warhol’s process and his interactions with his sitters is revealed in these images,” Moore said. “Through his rigorous – though almost unconscious – consistency in shooting, the idiosyncrasies of his subjects were revealed. Often, he would shoot a person or event with cameras, cropping one in Polaroid color as a ‘photograph’ and snapping the other in black and white as a ‘picture.’ By presenting both kinds of images side by side, the Photographic Legacy Program allows viewers to move back and forth between moments of Warhol’s ‘art,’ ‘work,’ and ‘life’ – inseparable parts of a whole.”

The Foundation has given away more than $200 million in cash grants and art donations during its 20-year lifespan and plans to continue advancing the American visual arts in a significant way.

“As we look to the future, the Warhol Foundation will continue to be guided by the vision of its founder and benefactor, whose dying wish was to establish a foundation to advance the visual arts,” Wachs said. “We will devote our energy and resources to expanding support for artists and arts institutions throughout the country, and hope the Foundation’s accomplishments will inspire others to follow Andy’s visionary lead.”

Sean Lennon, 1985 | Gift of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Karen Kaiser, assistant curator for education for the Jundt Art Museum, said the museum was contacted by the Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, inviting Gonzaga to apply for the Warhol Photographic Legacy Program.

“In order to be a recipient, the Jundt needed to meet specific standards of conservation and submit a full facility report that answered specific questions about staff, security, insurance, shipping and receiving, storage, pest control, loans, etc.,” Kaiser said. “There were also specifications regarding the documentation and scanning of the photographs as well as criteria for displaying the works. The museum was awarded the grant and the photographs arrived in late spring.”

The estimated value of the collection donated to Gonzaga is $140,000, Kaiser said, adding that the value of the gift to the Inland Northwest community is too great to measure.

The Jundt Art Center and Museum, opened in 1995, houses Gonzaga’s art department and includes studios for painting, drawing, printmaking, and ceramics. The Jundt Art Museum features the Jundt Galleries, the Arcade Gallery, and the Chancellor’s Room, which showcases an 800-piece blown glass chandelier by world-renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly. The Museum displays traveling exhibits and pieces from Gonzaga’s growing Permanent Collection of Art, including works by Rodin, Rembrandt, Goya, and Picasso. Gonzaga art Professor Scott Patnode is the director and curator of the Jundt Art Museum.

Coming to Jundt in December
Selected works from The Paris Review Print Series will be on display in the Arcade Gallery of the Jundt Art Museum from Dec. 1 through March 6, 2009. The Paris Review, a literary magazine with an online presence, noted the following about The Paris Review Print Series recently:

“In 1964 Drue Heinz made a gift to The Paris Review to enable the magazine to initiate a series of prints and posters by major contemporary artists, the purpose of which was to encourage works in the print medium while publicizing The Paris Review and providing financial support for the magazine. Largely through the efforts of Jane Wilson, a fellow artist and the director of the program, twenty-three artists – among them Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, and Robert Motherwell – were persuaded to donate signed and limited editions of original work.”

These lithographs and silk-screens, from Gonzaga’s Permanent Art Collection, include works from Richard Anuszkiewicz, Christo, Jimmy Ernst, Milton Glaser, Arnold Hoffman, Nicholas Krushenick, Sol LeWitt, Richard Lindner, Steve Poleskie, Carol Summers, and Terry Winters.

A free public walk-through with Karen Kaiser, assistant curator for education, will begin at 10 a.m., Friday, Dec. 5. Continuing in the Jundt Galleries until Dec. 13 is “Geography/Geology,” new work by Gonzaga fine arts faculty Terry Gieber and Mary Farrell. Admission to the Jundt Art Museum is free and open to the public. Museum hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Monday through Friday, and Saturday noon-4 p.m. The Museum is closed Sundays and University holidays. For more information, please contact Karen Kaiser, assistant curator for education, at (509) 313-6613 or via e-mail.