Feature: Art and Art History Celebrates 75 Years

            After 75 years, MSU’s Dept. of Art and Art History continues to find new ways to make, critique and interpret art.  

            One crisp, clear Friday afternoon this fall, I was greeting a prospective MSU student and his parents who hailed from Chicago.  We chatted about art, Michigan State University, and what the department, in particular, had to offer their son.  I indicated to the family that the timing was perfect as their son could have access to a dedicated faculty that is nationally and internationally recognized, including six new hires drawn from national searches, as well as the opportunity to exhibit in two new galleries that will feature student work. With this information, the prospective student smiled broadly and with unabashed enthusiasm exclaimed, “Cool!”

Tom Berding, Chairperson, Dept. of Art and Art History

            As Chairperson Tom Berding stands amid construction of a new Art and Art History gallery and recalls this recent encounter, he notes while the word “cool”may not have been in the vernacular when the department was founded 75 years ago, “The feeling of excitement and deep challenge generated by the study and practice of art certainly was.” 

            It is a history to which Berding is proud to have contributed, and to which he aims “to enhance in accordance with the enduring values, the needs of the present, and the challenge of the many imaginative leaps that art asks of us and we ask of it.”

            While the department’s community of friends and alumni can relish the memories of their experiences at MSU, they can also be assured that the enterprise of making, critiquing, and interpreting the world of art continues to grow.  Shaped by a plurality of viewpoints and a high standard of excellence, art is being continually explored, challenged, and redefined by the enthusiastic community of students, faculty, and staff in the Kresge Art Center. 

            As it turns 75, the department is proud of its past contributions both to MSU and to the national cultural community, and looks forward to building a future where art continues to inspire wonder, contemplation, diverse understanding—all the while sharpening one’s critical view.

            The influence of the department’s graduates and faculty has been substantial.  Consider these examples:

• An Art Department faculty member, Roger Funk, now retired, was the designer of the original and much-copied Toast-R-Oven®, an example of which is now housed in the Smithsonian Institution.
• Art department faculty member Leonard Jungwirth labored for three years to create the original Sparty (1945) – the largest freestanding ceramic figure in the world, which weighs in at a colossal three tons and stands eleven feet tall.  
• Art Department faculty and alumni artwork has been recognized at the highest national and international levels and may be seen locally at numerous sites on campus, from the Physics Building to the lawn of the Wharton Center. Fellowships from the Guggenheim, MacArthur, and Rockefeller Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Program--and even a Pulitzer Prize--have been bestowed upon MSU’s own.
• The image of Richard Merkin, Art Department alumnus and professor emeritus at the Rhode Island School of Design, appears on the famous Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album cover. His paintings also hang in some of the nation’s finest museums and galleries and his illustrations are featured regularly in Vanity Fairand The New Yorker.
• Art Department alumnus and noted designer Thomas C. Gale, former executive vice president of product development and design at DaimlerChrysler, understands that “good design is good business.”
• Art Department alumna Amy Horschak, director of education at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), has developed numerous long-running programs at MOMA for high school and college students, artists, teachers, and scholars.  In 2006 she was co-curator of the Dakar Biennial in Dakar, Senegal. 
• Art Department alumnus Phil Frank is a Pulitzer Prizewinning cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicleand creator of “Farley,” which is the only unsyndicated comic strip in the country that is drawn and published in a major newspaper on a daily basis.

THE PATH TO "COOL"

            Seventy-five years ago this fall, a new department comprising seven devoted faculty members taught more than 1,000 students.  A number of departmental exhibitions were held and student work was nominated for inclusion in the Western Art Teachers Association meeting in St. Louis, Missouri.  However, it was in 1855 (well before the department itself came into being) that Bela Hubbard, a founding father of the newly established Michigan Agricultural College, noted that the fine arts “add greater luster and dignity to life.” 

            Acknowledgment of the role fine arts should play at the new college resulted, by the mid-1890s, in fine art training being offered and in some instances required for agricultural, mechanical engineering, and domestic studies students.  Billed as “Freehand Drawing,” instructional courses included charcoal drawing, oil panting, and watercolor painting.

            As the country approached World War I, art studies were part of the Engineering Division’s Dept. of Drafting and Drawing, with course listings expanded to include graphic arts, advertising, and modeling.  The beginning of the 1931-32 academic year found the Department of Art as a separate department within the Liberal Arts Division.  Indeed, this separation was a proclamation of the significance and educational value attached to the practice and study of visual art at Michigan State College – an acknowledgment that increased over the coming decades. 

BREAKING GROUND

            During the decade following the establishment of the Dept. of Art, ever-increasing enrollments sent the department looking for more space.  Classes were held in the MSU Union and in six crowded Quonset huts south of the Red Cedar River.  Not only did enrollment rise through the 1940s and 1950s, but also the number of faculty increased from seven in 1945 to twenty-one in 1955.   Spurred by an enrollment growth of 350 percent and the university’s decision to decentralize many of its operations, plans were made for the department to move out of the temporary Quonset huts.

            In the late 1950s, the Kresge Foundation of Detroit announced a gift of $1.5 million in support of a new building to house the Dept. of Art.  The gift was one of the largest single-donor contributions of its timeearmarked for the advancement of fine art. 

            As President John A. Hannah noted on May 9, 1959, during the dedication of the Kresge Art Center: 

            “Everyone at Michigan State University is deeply grateful to the trustees of the Kresge Foundation for this gift, not alone because of the possibilities it opens up in the area of the fine arts, but as a tangible expression of confidence in this institution as a broad-gauged university.” 

            In addition to the excitement generated by the new building, the 1960s also saw an invasion of the movers and shakers of the contemporary art world—one that continues to this day.  Art production was held in high esteem alongside the study of art history, philosophy, theory, and criticism—values clearly reflected in the campus visits of critics and theorists such as Clement Greenberg.  Visiting artists of the time included Barnett Newman, Sir Anthony Caro, Robert De Niro, Sr., and Miriam Schapiro.  During this era, faculty member Louis Raynor joined with fellow ceramicists to form the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts at his home in the then-rural community of Okemos, Michigan.

            In 1964, Kresge Art Center was expanded to accommodate the increasing number of students seeking art instruction. The university and the Kresge Foundation provided funding for the addition of an art education wing, sculpture building, and space for the Kresge Gallery.

            Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the halls of Kresge vibrated with the same energy that was sweeping the country—there were new faculty, evolving materials, innovative process experimentations in the studio, and collaborations among students, faculty, and other departments on campus.  Professor emeritus Roger L. Funk describes the period as “one of growth, excitement, new ideas, and solid engagement,” where students and faculty worked and learned together side by side. 

BEYOND THE WALLS OF KRESGE: 75 YEARS OF OUTREACH AND COLLABORATION

            The Dept. of Art and Art History has continually developed innovative programs and experiences for students and the community alike. 

            One of the first such programs began in the summer of 1939 in Leland, Michigan, when seven graduate students enjoyed painting free from the distractions of campus. This became a cherished summer tradition for the next 50 years. Another alternative academic experience was created by the department’s affiliation with the renowned Pewabic Pottery, which allowed students, alumni, and community members to study in a professional setting.  Yet another pioneering program, Saturday Morning Art, began in 1971 to give future art educators the opportunity to interact and work with school-age children.  In time, this program developed into an integral part of MSU’s degree program in art education.  “Saturday Art” is still active today.

            The department has sought partnerships and affiliations with other art organizations.  For example, the Michigan Art Education Association holds yearly conferences in the Kresge Art Center.  Studio space is also shared with the community for life drawing, with open studio sessions every week throughout the semester. Continuing Education courses and summer programs through the Ingham County School District also enhance the community’s exposure to the thrill and complexities of art practice and study.

            At the same time, the department extends art into the campus and local community through visiting artists, critics, and scholars.  These art world professionals are often invited to campus in collaboration with other MSU departments and local organizations.   With an investment from more than 15 MSU units, for example, the 2005-2006 Fringe Festival brought contemporary artists GuillermoGómez-Peña, Alison Saar, and James Luna to East Lansing.   They join a list of other recent visitors that includes Chuck Close, Irving Sandler, Carol Becker, Sandy Skoglund, and Arthur Danto.

INVESTMENTS IN THE FUTURE

            This year, student exhibition space in Kresge Art Center has more than doubled in size, with Gallery 114, an exhibition space created in 1993, receiving a significant facelift.  Additional space was created on the north side of the art center and new display cases were installed for the exhibition of three-dimensional work.

            Significant investments in technology include the addition of a state-of-the-art digital lab. Promising to be a great resource for many students, and in particular those interested in design, the new technology is exposing students to the inherent challenges and opportunities of the digital world.

            The technology wave sweeps further with upgrades to the Dept. of Art and Art History’s Visual Resources Library (VRL).  The VRL maintains and provides access to a collection numbering more than 155,000 images for student and faculty research on works of art and visual culture.  In the summer of 2006, the VRL joined a database consortium that includes departments at nearly 30 other institutions.   Additionally, the VRL has been able to develop an online public access database that gives MSU faculty, staff, and students 24-hour access to images.

            Investment in art at MSU has brought five new tenure-stream faculty members to the department and a new digital technology coordinator.  A recently secured grant from the Efroymson Fund will allow for increased opportunities for Master of Fine Arts students and specifically supports travel related to their professional and artistic development. Exciting new collaborations with other MSU units, including the College of Communication Arts and Sciences; new curriculum developments; and increased graduate offerings and student funding opportunities are making the first decade of the twenty-first century a time of great excitement and growth for the department. 

            More than a century and a half after the founding of MSU, it seems that now more than ever, the visual, creative, and critical education that takes place in the department is not just a value added, but a necessary component for every world-class university.  In the economic future imagined by contemporary writers Daniel Pink and Richard Florida, phrases like “the revenge of the right brain” and “the rise of the creative class” have an almost manifesto quality to them.  No doubt artistry, empathy, and the ability to understand and interpret multiple ways of seeing are increasingly valued skills—especially when considered in the global context.   Arguably there is no place on campus where those skills are honed more than on the banks of the Red Cedar, in the Kresge Art Center.

            And while Daniel Pink has gone so far as to postulate the MFA as the new MBA, those in the know continue to value the artistic practice for its own sweet reward, the same reward that might lead a future Spartan to utter “cool” when dreaming about a life in the arts.

            Michelle Word, M.F.A ’05, was awarded a College of Arts and Letters Dissertation Completion Fellowship and served as a Visiting Assistant Professor for 2005-06.  She currently works for the department as Outreach Specialist.  Research assistance for this story was provided by Thomas Berding and Jan Simpson.

ANNIVERSARY INFORMATION

            Visit www.art.msu.edufor information on the Dept. of Art and Art History’s 75^th anniversary celebration activities, which include events for alumni and friends, alumni stories and a gallery of historical photographs.

            Alumni who wish to share their recent news and accomplishments, to receive the department’s mailings, or to participate in an online alumni exhibition, contact Michelle Word at wordmich@msu.edu.

            For information on ways to contribute and support the Dept. of Art and Art History, contact Chairperson Thomas Berding at (517) 355-7612.