Category: Archives
Collection Feature: Jackie Winsor, #2 Copper
Jackie Winsor (born 1941, St. John’s Island, Newfoundland, Canada) assembles sculptures out of unexpected components. She prefers organic materials such as rope, hemp, branches and logs or building supplies like concrete, nails and bricks. Not one to shy away from difficult physical work, Winsor constructs her minimalist geometric forms through repetitive manual labor. For #2 Copper, the artist built a grid out of 36 narrow pieces of wood, arranged in three sections of concentric squares. She wrapped each intersection with #2 industrial copper wire, forming
Inscribed Books at the Akron Art Museum
by Stefanie Hilles, Education AssistantImagine this. You visit the Akron Art Museum and fall in love under the “roof cloud” (the museum’s 327 foot long steel cantilever that joins the old 1899 post office building with the new 2007 Coop Himmelb(l)au structure). No, not with some beautiful stranger you exchange eye contact with across the museum’s lobby (although that would be pretty exciting too). Instead, you fall in love with a beautiful artwork. Maybe you’re a fan of American Impressionism and succumb to the charms
A Look Back Into the Archives: Folk Art
By Mandy Tomasik, KSU library and information science practicum studentIf you haven’t seen the new Butch Anthony: Vita Post Mortum exhibition yet, you really should. It’s phenomenal, and actually only the latest in a long line of folk, outsider and self-taught artist exhibitions here at the Akron Art Museum.“But wait,” you say. “Doesn’t the Akron Art Museum have a modern and contemporary focus? What’s with the folk art?” I think Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. says it best: “American folk art both is and has been
A Look Back Into the Archives: The Inverted Q
By Mandy Tomasik, KSU library and information science practicum studentThis post is brought to you by the letter Q. Claes Oldenburg’s Inverted Q, to be exact. While perhaps one of the most recognizable pieces in the museum, I don’t think that many people know the story of how the Inverted Q came to be and its inextricable ties to Akron.Oldenburg was exploring the idea of colossal letters in various monumental situations. While working out the possibilities of a giant Q situated in a landscape, the
A Look Back Into the Archives: Art in Use
By Mandy Tomasik, KSU library & information science practicum studentIt’s that time of year when the air turns chilly and thoughts turn to things comfy and cozy. I have been in squirrel mode preparing my apartment for the cold weather ahead, since the thought of hibernating in a cluttered space makes me claustrophobic all over. So, with housekeeping on my mind, I couldn’t help but notice while working in the archives the significant number of house and home-related exhibits clustered in the mid-1940’s to early
A Look Back Into the Archives: John Pearson
By Mandy Tomasik, KSU library & information science practicum studentLet’s talk about math. No, wait, come back!John Pearson has already done all the math, we just get to enjoy the results. The new John Pearson: Intuitive Structures exhibition in the Isroff Gallery is the first solo show at the Akron Art Museum for this enduring figure in the Northeast Ohio arts community. Educated at the Harrogate College of Art, Yorkshire, the Royal Academy Schools, London and Northern Illinois University, Pearson taught at Oberlin College from
A Look Back into the Archives: The Akron Art Club
By: Alexandra Lynch, Kent State University Practicum Student Founded in 1915, the Akron Art Club had a membership of 20 people and was organized by Herbert Atkins and Kenneth Nunemaker. The club met once a week and allocated one afternoon a month to outdoor sketching. In 1915 the Akron Art Club started holding exhibitions in various locations around the city, which soon lead way to the idea for an art center. On October 19, 1920, 24 Akron citizens met to explore the possibilities of bringing
A Look Back Into the Archives: La Wilson
By Alex Lynch, Kent State University Practicum StudentWe’re featuring local artist La Wilson for the second time in our galleries. Her first show, Metaphorical Objects, was at the museum from November 14, 1986 – January 18, 1987, and highlighted the charm and wittiness found in the ordinary, everyday objects of our culture.The examining, collecting, sorting and assembling that is Wilson’s art is evident in her current exhibition, Objects Transformed, on view through September 21, 2014. Interchange and New York Brush, also featured in Metaphorical Objects,