Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art
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The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art is the art museum of the University of Oklahoma at Norman . It was established in 1936 as the Oklahoma University Museum of Art and includes more than 20,000 collection items. The focus of the collection is on the arts and crafts of the indigenous peoples of America, especially the Native Americans and works of French Impressionism . There are also collection areas with art from Asia, contemporary art and works of photography.
History and Buildings
The driving force behind the founding of the museum was the Swedish painter Oscar Brousse Jacobsen . Since 1915 he directed the art school of the University of Oklahoma, where he also taught. In addition, he began to collect his first works of art in the 1920s. In 1936 the university received a collection of Asian art as a foundation. The Oklahoma University Museum of Art was founded that same year . It was initially located in the rooms of a former library building on the university campus, which is now called Jacobson Hall in honor of the museum's founder . When expanding the collections, Jacobsen paid particular attention to contemporary art of the Native Americans .
In 1971, businessman Fred Jones and his wife donated a new museum building. The building, designed by Oklahoma City- based architecture firm Howard and Samis , was erected on the university site at the corner of Parrington Oval and W. Boyd Street. It was renamed the Fred Jones Jr. Memorial Art Center , named after the founder's son. He was a former university student who was killed in a plane crash in 1950. The museum has been renamed Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art since 1992. The new Lester Wing was built in 2005 according to plans by the architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen for the ever-growing collection . In 2011, the Stuart Wing followed plans to connect the existing buildings by Rand Elliott . The main entrance is now in the Lester Wing on Elm Avenue. Individual sculptures were set up in the outdoor area, including a bronze figure of the Sphinx by the Colombian artist Fernando Botero and the bronze work Two Figures by the Englishwoman Barbara Hepworth
Collections
The museum has extensive collections, most of which come from donations from various donors. The personal interests of the donors thus largely determine the composition and focus of the collection.
Asian art
The Asian Art Department has existed since the museum opened. In 1936 , Louis Hanies Wentz and Richard Gorden Matzene from Ponca City donated a collection of 758 objects to the museum, including Gandhara sculptures, Persian miniature paintings , art from Nepal and Tibet , Chinese ceramics, bronzes and paintings. The photographer Matzene had traveled to Asia several times, the entrepreneur Wentz financed these stays.
Icons
The inventory of icons in the museum is a gift from George C. McGhee and his wife Cecilia DeGoyler McGhee. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1933 and later became the US Ambassador to Turkey and the Federal Republic of Germany . The collection includes icons from the 16th to 19th centuries from today's territory of Greece , Russia , Romania and Turkey.
Western European art
Art from Western Europe from before the 19th century is only represented to a limited extent in the museum. The foundation of the art historian Creight E. Gilbert is significant here, who donated his collection of 272 works on paper from the 14th to the 20th century to the museum in 2005. The focus of this foundation is on prints and drawings from the Renaissance and Baroque periods . This includes, for example, the etching Saint Jerome in the dark room by Rembrandt van Rijn . In addition, there are individual examples of Baroque painting in the museum, such as a Last Supper attributed to the Italian Luca Giordano and the depiction of Perseus and Andromeda by the Flemish painter Hendrick de Clerck .
The focus of the collection of Western European art is the foundation of the Aaron M. and Clara Weitzenhoffer Collection in 2000 . It mainly includes works by French artists from the end of the 19th century and from the beginning of the 20th century. The most important exhibits of this foundation include the landscape paintings Le Repos du Vacher au Pied des Fraîches Collines by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot , La Berge à Lavacourt by Claude Monet , Winter's Day by Paul Gauguin , Coastal Scene by Paul Signac , Rue en Banlieue by Henri Rousseau , La Seine à Chatou by Maurice de Vlaminck , Bouleaux à l'Etang-la-Ville by Édouard Vuillard and La Plage de Sainte-Adresse by Raoul Dufy . Still lifes such as Roses and Chrysanthemums by Pierre-Auguste Renoir , Nature morte by Armand Guillaumin , Fleurs by Maurice Utrillo and Nature morte à la théière by Pierre Bonnard can also be seen . In addition, there is the rural scene Bergère rentrat des moutons and the orchard Pommiers dans le pre a Eragny by Camille Pissarro , the motif of a horse racing track Paddock by Raoul Dufy, the portraits of Alexander Reid by Vincent van Gogh , Coco by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and the portrait of one Girl by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec . The paintings of the Weitzenhoffer Foundation are exhibited together with handicrafts such as furniture, porcelain and silver work, which also come from this collection. In addition, Ms. Weitzenhoffer donated the pastel paintings Danseuse à la barre by Edgar Degas , La Loge by Jean-Louis Forain , Les Oeillets by Odilon Redon , Madame Hessel et Lulu dans la salle à manger des Clayes by Édouard Vuillard, the watercolor Personnages sur la Plage , Trouville by Eugène Boudin or the Gouache Naked with Swan by Camille Pissarro.
Art from North and South America
The Art of the Americas department contains extensive holdings of arts and crafts from North and South America. The oldest objects date from pre-Columbian times , for example from the culture of the Olmecs . Other exhibits are from the Inca , Maya, and Nazca . Most of all ceramics, stone sculptures and gold jewelry are on display. Later works of folk art such as wooden masks and carvings from Mexico, ceramics from the Shipibo-Conibo from Peru , wickerwork from the Wounaan from Panama and textile art from the Huicholes from Mexico.
Particularly extensive is the department with art and crafts of indigenous peoples from the territory of the United States ( Native Americans / Indians ). There is mostly textile work, jewelry, ceramics and paintings from the 20th century from different tribes such as the Shawnee from Oklahoma to the Navajo , Hopi and Zuñi in Arizona and New Mexico . Works by First Nations and Inuit artists come from Canada . These paintings, prints and sculptures were mostly created after 1960. The most famous artists here include Norval Morriseau and Jane Ash Poitras .
United States Art
The collection of art from the United States includes works from the 18th century to the present day. The museum lists art from the indigenous peoples living in the United States as Art of the Americas in the field of art from North and South America.
Shortly before the founding of the United States, the portrait of Mrs. Jabez Bowen by John Singleton Copley was made , a portrait of the wife of a shipowner and politician based on a European model. The landscape depiction of Yosemite Valley by Albert Bierstadt , a painter from Germany who was based on the romanticism of the Düsseldorf School of Painting , dates from the second half of the 19th century . In 1901 the pastel portrait Sara in a Dark Bonnet Tied under Her Chin was created by Mary Cassatt , an artist from Philadelphia who stayed in Paris for a long time and from there brought Impressionist painting to the United States. Works such as the watercolor Study of Roses by Julian Alden Weir or the landscape painting Good Harbor Beach Gloucester by Childe Hassam are influenced by this trend .
Among the best known works in the collection are two works that the museum acquired from holdings of the United States Department of State in 1948 . So came from Edward Hopper watercolor House at Provincetown from 1930 also in the collection, like the flower motif Cos Cob by Georgia O'Keeffe from 1926. For the same year comes the landscape Road to Chimayo by John French Sloan , a representative of the group of artists Ashcan School . Even the woman Portrait of The White Cockade of Walt Kuhn 1944 carries realistic features. On the other hand, the oil painting Waterfront by Stuart Davis from 1935 already shows clear characteristics of abstract art .
Lithographs such as the Bouboules color circles by Alexander Calder , the abstract Corpse and Mirror by Jasper Johns or the scissors motif Scissors as Monument by Claes Oldenburg date from the second half of the 20th century . There are also the geometric work Pyramids by Roy Lichtenstein , the collage-like works Features from Currents by Robert Rauschenberg or the Action Painting Untitled from 1983 by the artist Sam Francis . There is also the figurative image Swimmers by Larry Rivers and a letter motif Love by Robert Indiana .
photography
A collection of photographs began to be built up just one year after the museum opened. In 1937 Oscar Jacobsen acquired three photos by Edward Weston , and in 1942 two more works by this photographer followed. But it wasn't until the 1970s that the actual expansion of the collection began under the museum director Sam Olkinetzky and his assistant Edwin J. Deighten, who himself worked as a photographer. During this time, significant works by Berenice Abbott and W. Eugene Smith were acquired. In addition, prints of works by the British landscape photographer Michael Kenna were given as gifts . With the collection of Richard and Ellen Sandor from Chicago, further important photos finally found their way into the museum collection. These include works by Bill Brandt , Manuel Álvarez Bravo , Robert Capa , Henri Cartier-Bresson , Edward Curtis , André Kertész , Ed Paschke , James Van Der Zee and Garry Winogrand . Other photographic works in the collection come from Ansel Adams , Eugène Atget , Laura Gilpin , Alfred Stieglitz and William Wegman .
literature
- Eric McCauley Lee, Rima Canaan: The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma, selected works . University of Oklahoma Press, Norman (Oklahoma) 2004, ISBN 0-8061-3673-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Eric McCauley Lee, Rima Canaan: The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma, selected works , p. 11.
- ↑ Eric McCauley Lee, Rima Canaan: The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma, selected works , p. 13.
- ↑ Eric McCauley Lee, Rima Canaan: The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma, selected works , p. 13.
- ↑ Eric McCauley Lee, Rima Canaan: The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma, selected works , p. 13.
- ↑ Eric McCauley Lee, Rima Canaan: The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma, selected works , p. 15.
Coordinates: 35 ° 12 '38.7 " N , 97 ° 26' 48.8" W.