Dignity and Diversity: Portraits from the Permanent Collection

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The JCSM and its collections are available to you in many ways. Book a docent-led tour, bring students over on your own to use the galleries for instruction, or even send students over by themselves for a special assignment. You can request pieces from the permanent collection to use in research and presentation, as well as have a curator lead all or part of your class.

To book a tour, or to let us know to expect you and your students, contact Debbie Frojo at jcsmtours@ auburn.edu, or call 844-3486. Please contact us at least two weeks in advance.

As I looked through the

artworks and researched them, it became clear that people’s longing to express their dignity, or that of others, through art was consistent across countries, eras, and cultures.

— Honors Introduction to Art History student

If you would like to incorporate a museum project into your class, contact Scott Bishop, Curator of Academic and Public Programs, at bishogs@auburn.edu, or call 844-7014. SAVE THE DATE

M o nd a y, M a y 6 / 8 a .m .

S EEI N G ACR O S S TH E C U RR IC ULUM

A workshop for Auburn University faculty, including teaching assistants Co-sponsored by JCSM and Auburn’s Office of University Writing

Contacts:

Scott Bishop Curator of Academic and Public Programs bishogs@auburn.edu 844-7014 Christopher Basgier Associate Director of University Writing chris.basgier@auburn.edu 844-7493

MUSEUM HOURS Monday: Closed Tuesday–Saturday: 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Extended Hours: Thursday until 8 p.m. Sunday: 1–4 p.m.

VISIT. JOIN. SUPPORT.

901 SOUTH COLLEGE STREET AUBURN, AL ABAMA

@JCSMAUBURN JCSM.AUBURN.EDU

T DIGNITY AND DIVERSITY:

Portraits from the Permanent Collection A practicum exhibition curated by the students of Honors Introduction to Art History

he modern concept of dignity—the notion of an individual’s inherent human worth—defines one idea at the heart of the artistic genre of portraiture and at the center of this exhibition. By translating a person’s likeness, character, role, or status into a work of art, the artist recognizes and communicates a subject’s value, simply through the fact of the portrait itself. The portraits in this gallery tell us that the individuals before us should be seen and remembered. But we also recognize changes in the definition of dignity over time and across cultures. In Europe before the nineteenth century, for example, the term “dignity” communicated a narrower idea of rank, power, and social status. Similarly, the concept of portraiture is also an ever-changing and diverse category that has manifested itself over the centuries through a variety of subjects, media, and styles.

The student-curators of this exhibition quickly recognized a shared sense of dignity in the more than one hundred diverse and varied portraits held in the museum’s permanent collection. As one student wrote: “As I looked through the artworks and researched them, it became clear that people’s longing to express their dignity, or that of others, through art was consistent across countries, eras, and cultures.” While the long and complex history of portraiture highlights the differences, individualities, and particulars that make each of us unique, it also offers the opportunity to recognize the common humanity we all share. Each student in the class selected one work from the permanent collection to present. Their collective choices demonstrate a variety of portrait formats, from full-length to bust-length and frontal to profile poses, in a range of styles, from the expressive and stylized to the strictly naturalistic. Seen through the variety of modes within painting, photography, and printmaking, the subjects and sitters of the works introduce themselves as anonymous, everyday individuals as well as the elite, famous, and powerful. The selections also present a surprising roster of national and internationally known artists, including two artists from the state of Alabama: Kathryn Tucker Windham and Anne Goldthwaite.


Oscar DeMejo (American, 1911–1992)

Kathryn Tucker Windham (American, 1918–2011) Woman with Rooster, n.d. Gelatin silver print

Yoshu Chikanobu (Japanese, 1838–1912)

Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; gift of Lynn Barstis Williams Katz and Stephen Goldfarb 2014.14.4

Unidentified title (Seated woman and cat) Color woodcut

Selected by

RA C HEL COLLI N S business student

Eugene Paul Ullman (American, 1877–1953)

Andy Warhol (American, 1928–1987) Chris Evert, 1977 Polacolor Type 108

Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; gift of Lewis Taft Glenn 2011.30.6

Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. 2008.03.001

Selected by

Selected by

J A M E S F OO pre-architecture student

MA D I S O N S I MS pre-aerospace engineering student

Andy Warhol (American, 1928–1987) Karen Kain, 1980 Screenprint and diamond dust on Lenox Museum Board Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. 2013.21.5

Portrait of George Washington, 1986 Acrylic on canvas Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; gift of Steven and Jadwiga Markoff 2006.07.10 Selected by

HAR R IS O N DAN IE LS pre-dentistry student

Walker Evans (American, 1903–1975) Portrait of James Agee, 1937 Digital print on archival paper Produced by the U.S. Library of Congress, 2008 Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; museum purchase 2008.04.25 Selected by

William Merritt Chase (American, 1849–1916) Portrait of Mrs. George H. Earle, Jr., 1902 Oil on canvas Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; gift of Bob and Kitty Lovett 2002.4 Selected by

N ATALIE M ELTON College of Liberal Arts student

MARY ALICE B ILB O pre-pharmacy student

Selected by

A N NA GR AB E N pre-architecture student

Studio Window (Study of Willard Snowden), ca. 1967 Drybrush, graphite and watercolor on paper

Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973)

Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; gift of Noel and Kathryn Dickinson Wadsworth 2005.02

Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; gift of Bill L. Harbert, class of 1948 2004.04.11

Selected by

Selected by

LA U R A HERREN pre-nursing student

Jacqueline, 1959 Linocut

SA R A H R U TL E D G E philosophy student

The Jewish Bride, n.d. Etching Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; gift of James M. Hunnicutt 2005.07.02 Selected by

MA K EN N A L EAT H ERS communication disorders student

Chad States (American, b. 1975) Dex, 2007 Archival pigment print

Portrait of Rico Lebrun, ca. 1927 Oil on canvas

Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; William Dunlop Collection 2010.08.6

Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; transfer from Auburn University Department of Art and Art History 1983.1

Selected by

Selected by

EMI LY GAR GUILO political science student

Selected by

LILY GATES pre-pharmacy student

Carey, Farmington, Georgia, 1996 Gelatin silver print

JE N N IFER M ULH OLLAND pre-chemical engineering student

Anne Goldthwaite (American, 1869–1944) Wilhelm Unger (German, 1837–1932)

Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; gift of the artist’s son, Pierre L. Ullman 2008.18

Mark Steinmetz (American, b. 1961)

Selected by

Andrew Wyeth (American, 1917–2009)

Untitled (Portrait of a Woman), n.d. Oil on canvas mounted on hardboard

JULIE O ’HAR A College of Liberal Arts student

Marc Chagall (Belarusian, 1887–1985)

Lisette Model (American, b. Austria, 1901–1983)

Femme au visage bleu, 1965 Oil on board

Lower East Side (woman), New York, ca. 1942 Gelatin silver print

Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; gift of Bill L. Harbert, class of 1948 2004.04.05

Museum purchase with funds provided by William Dunlop 2016.02 Selected by

CAR LT O N S CHMIE DE R pre-engineering student

Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; museum purchase with funds provided by the 1072 Society 2016.01.13

Selected by

JE S S IC A LEWIS physics and philosophy student


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