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Eye & Mind: A Legacy of Art Collecting at Vanderbilt University

Presented by Vanderbilt University at Vanderbilt University - Fine Arts Gallery

October 1-December 17, 2009

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Presented on the occasion of the opening of the newly renovated and expanded historic Cohen Memorial Hall, Eye & Mind: A Legacy of Art Collecting at Vanderbilt University illustrates the breadth and depth of the collection, now in its fifty-third year. Vanderbilt University’s fine art collection began with Anna C. Hoyt’s generous donation of 105 Old Master and modern prints and now numbers close to 6,000 objects. With a newly invigorated focus on the collection as broad-based resource to the university community, Eye & Mind has been crafted to strengthen the educational role of the gallery and its collections within the context of the curriculum.

Highlights from the current exhibition include the Samuel H. Kress Collection of Renaissance paintings, on view in in its entirety. Other significant works of art include a large Dutch landscape by Jan Both; an eighteenth-century Italian harbor scene from the school of Francesco Guardi, and a small landscape by the principal founding member of the French Barbizon landscape school, Theodore Rousseau. Milton Avery, Isabel Bishop, Childe Hassam, George Inness, Edward Steichen, and Carrie Mae Weems, and other American artists are represented by outstanding examples of their paintings, photographs, and prints. Two surprises for many who are familiar with the collection include an early work by the American sculptor John Chamberlain and a small painting by Milton Resnick—artists who were closely associated with Abstract Expressionism, a movement in American painting in the 1940s and 1950s. There is also an imposing, large-scale serigraph on polished stainless steel by the iconic American artist Robert Rauschenberg. This exhibition is curated by Joseph S. Mella.

Image: Robert Rauschenberg, American (1925–2008), Swim/ROCI USA, (Wax Fire Works), 1990.