MUSEION: The Reed College Art Collection, One Hundred Years of Generosity

September 6 - December 7, 2011

MUSEION is an evolving exhibition of works from the Reed College Art Collection exhibited in relationship to an interdisciplinary array of artifacts and ethnographic objects donated to the college over the past one hundred years. Organized in celebration of the Reed College Centennial, MUSEION is curated by Cooley Gallery Director Stephanie Snyder '91 in collaboration with a group of guest curators and Reed community members, including students, staff, and faculty. Documented in catalog form at the close of the exhibition, these shifts will catalyze different perspectives and insights into the history of the Reed College Art Collection, the changing shape of institutional and curatorial practice, and the complex nature of the artwork as both historical subject and living thing.

Tuesday, September 11 from 6:00—9:00 pm, Reception at the Cooley Gallery
Free and open to the public.

On view Tuesday, September 6—Wednesday, December 7, from 12:00—5:00 pm
Open every week, Tuesday through Sunday. Free and open to the public.

The exhibition opens with important and rarely-seen paintings by artists such as Mark Rothko (1903–1970), Louis Michel Eilshemius (1864–1941), Thelma Johnson Streat (1911–1959), Milton Avery (1885–1965), Morris Graves (1910–2001), and C.S. Price (1874–1950) donated to the college by renowned American violinist and Portland native Louis Kaufman and his wife Annette; and the Estate of Reed College Anthropology Professor David French '39 and his wife Katherine.

The first iteration of Museion also includes work by Reed College alumna Shirley Gittelsohn '49, Willard Midgette (Reed College Professor of Art 1963–71), and a recent film by Vancouver BC artist Allison Hrabluik.

The evolving exhibition will incorporate an array of works donated to the college by Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery benefactors Edward and Sue Cooley and John and Betty Gray, and collectors and artists including: Edith Feldenheimer, Harry and Lena Kenin, Arlene Schnitzer, Victor and Edna Chittick, Samuel and Jeanne Moment, the Carl and Hilda Morris Foundation, Annie and Ernie Munch, the Binford Estate, Lewis Kleinholz, Florence Lehman, James McGarrell, C. Everett and Nancy McCourt Steichen, Sheldon Williams, Fred Dunbar and Helen Mangano, and Leslie Scalapino '61 and Tom White.

MUSEION will also feature works by contemporary artists from the Reed College Art Collection including: Marc Joseph Berg, Carol Benson, Michael Brophy, Kim Dingle, Tom Fawkes, Léonie Guyer, Irving Guyer, Marko Lulic, Elspeth Pratt, and David Reed '68. Carol Benson's work recently entered the Reed College Art Collection through a generous grant from the Ford Family Foundation.

In November, MUSEION will mark the publication of David Reed: Lives of Paintings—a unique artist's book/monograph on the work of renowned New York painter and Reed alumnus David Reed '68, published by the Cooley Gallery, and including texts by Reed College Professor of Art Michael Knutson, Emeritus Professor of Art History Charles Rhyne, Lisa Ann Favero, and Jeffrey Kipnis.