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A selection from the Advancing American Art Collection
to be featured at JCSM

AUBURN, Ala. – The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University will exhibit a selection of some of the museum’s most treasured pieces from the Advancing American Art Collection October 24, 2009 – January 23, 2010 in the Chi Omega-Hargis Gallery.  The thirty-six paintings and works on paper in the Advancing American Art collection constitute one of the most significant components of the permanent collection at JCSM.

Paintings by Arthur Dove, Jacob Lawrence, John Marin, Georgia O’Keeffe and Ben Shahn are among the featured works in the exhibition.  Originally part of a group of artworks assembled by the U.S. State Department in 1946 to demonstrate the ascendancy of American modern art, the works came to Auburn University in 1948, then known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute.

This fall’s reinstallation offers a chance for viewing in advance of a planned reunion of the widely dispersed original 119 works for a major exhibition and publication in Fall 2012 organized collaboratively by JCSM, the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma, and the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia.

Open since 2003, the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University is Alabama’s only university art museum.  Serving as the gateway into Auburn University, the museum has a wide-ranging permanent collection, which includes more than 100 Audubon prints, Tibetan bronzes dating from as early as the 15th century and works by important American modern artists, such as William Gropper, John Sloan) and Lyonel Feininger. The museum rotunda features a three-tiered, hand-blown glass chandelier created especially for the space by internationally renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly.  The museum experience continues onto the grounds with fifteen acres of gardens, walking paths and water features complete with outdoor sculpture, including Spinoff, created by Auburn alumna Jean Woodham.

 
Contacts:

Dennis Harper, Curator
dharper@auburn.edu   (334) 844- 1419

Stacey Moore, Marketing
moore23@auburn.edu, (334) 821 - 3488