Exhibitions Archive 1963 – 1969

1969 BEAVER NEWS
“Contemporary Artists Hold Drawing Exhibit”

Beaver College will be the host of a Contemporary Drawings exhibition, opening on Thursday, November 20 at 4:30 p.m. and running through Sunday, December 7. The theme of the show is the important part that drawing plays in each artist’s search for form. It will consist of three drawings by each of the artists who represent a number of disciplines, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, and intermedia. Among those presenting their works are William Daley, Larry Day, Eileen Goodman, Sidney Goodman, Jerome Kaplan, Gary Kiering, David Pease, Julie Pease, Jane Piper, Italo Scanga, and Doris Staffel. The Atwood Library art gallery will house the exhibit, daily from 9-5, Saturday and Sunday from 2-5. Mrs. Ruth Lehrer, of the fine arts department, has organized the program. 

1966 BEAVER NEWS
“Creative Art Exhibit by Mr. Hathaway; Experimental Techniques in Graphics” by Susan Wood

“Watercolors and Graphic Works of John W. Hathaway” currently showing in the Library Gallery is a unique exhibit – not only in its pervading mood of experimentation but in its display of the tools of printmaking, which enables the layman to more fully understand techniques involved in the creative process. 

This is the first time such a display has been presented, and it is a valuable supplement to preceding exhibitions. Browsing through the woodblocks and cardboard reliefs reveals the varied expressions to which wood, collage, and linoleum prints may be put. “Galapagos Tortoise” appears as a black and white print, yes, but is also shown in combination with color aid paper – “Truth Will Out” unites woodcut with collage by the use of tissue paper. 

Expression through Watercolors

However, Mr. Hathaway’s creative inquiry is not confined to his graphic work. His watercolors employ a variety of approaches. In “Cross Over” and “On theDock” bold brush strokes are combined with magic marker on dry paper, and in “Snowbound Patio” and “Cold Spring Harbor” both brush and paper were used wet. Their excitement and freshness emerge from not only technique but from subject matter as well. Here beauty is found in the commonplace. 

The vibrant quality of concentrated watercolor is investigated perceptively in two manners – in the brilliant brush “Impressions” of the color patterns of stained glass, and in the monoprint of “Zinnias” pulled from a second surface to which the color was applied. 

The cardboard relief “Up for Painting,” which stresses the importance of “spaces between” in a distribution of shapes that evolve into its accompanying “Abstraction,” Culminates this exhibit’s special quality of allowing the observer to participate in the development of an idea. 

Although many media are explored in this show, all bear the personal style of Mr. Hathaway; the strength and boldness of brushstroke and composition, the outspoken color, and the thorough enthusiasm of an artist who loves all that he sees around him and can find beauty in the seemingly incidental. 

1966 BEAVER NEWS
“Alumna’s Work Vibrant in Color, Design” by Susan Wood

An inspiring and encouraging answer to the inevitable question of what happens to Beaver art students upon graduation – whether they are ever able to establish themselves successfully in their highly competitive field – is given in the library gallery’s current exhibition. The paintings and woodcuts of Jane Geayer are the accomplished results of talent, ambition, and hard work. 

Miss Geayer’s imagery is primarily flat and decorative, displaying a sound sense of design, her major while at Beaver. The influence of Miss Francksen, her former professor, is evident, especially in the precise little woodcut “Wondering.” It is, however, in the boat and shore subjects with which she is most familiar that her best work emerges, combining her knowledge of design elements with her personal predilection for pattern. 

Her laconic and forceful forms are well integrated. “Rooftops” and “Les Hulottes,” both of a humorous vein, show her depiction of the essence of shapes in the simplest possible terms and building up with them a compact composition. “Festival,” a delicate woodcut displaying her familiarity with architectural forms, is a fine example of this ability to creatively transform her thorough knowledge of the visible world and to depict it in a work of art. 

Although this is Beaver’s first one woman showing of any of its graduates’ work, Miss Geayer (class of ’56) has had one exclusive show and participated in group exhibitions. 

Presently teaching, she has done interiors as well as murals (a sketch for one is in the show) and has work in private collections. This is the art of an amazing young woman, one of the best shows Beaver has had, and definitely one not to be missed.

1965 BEAVER NEWS
“Powerful Contemporary Art Featured in Campus Display” by Susan Wood

The “Drawings by Contemporary American Artists” show currently in the Eugenia Fuller Atwood Library gallery until November 19, offers, through its various styles, new insights into the unfortunately too frequently held notion that drawing is merely a restating of nature in terms of the pencil. 

World of His Own

Drawing, however, is an artistic expression, and an artist does not copy but rather utilize the world around him via selection – of iconography, of formal values, and of techniques – to formulate a world of his own: a synthesis of his visual experience and his personality. 

The value of this exhibit is that it discloses many facets of drawing. Included are two examples of fine draftsmanship, “Classique” by John Lear, and “Nuts on a Plate” by Dan Miller, the former in pencil and the latter in ink. Yet it is in “Curtain” by Jack Bookbinder, which has the element of emotion added to realistic interpretation, that drawing becomes more expressive. It is this delving beyond visual perception of a subject as such that makes the rest of the show so fresh in its approach. 

Depiction of Emotion

“Nursing Mother and Child” by Harvey Dinnerstein relates a tenderness with pencil; but a pencil that is soft and reduces its lines to fundamental forms. The inclusion of details, in fact even the whole body, is not deemed necessary to depict the emotion. Talent does not require exact rendering to evidence itself. It is shown in the artist’s ability to communicate a thought with so few specifics. 

“Low Tide” by Oliver Nuse, “Wood” by George Bunker, and “Figure” by Rudolf Staffel also minimize the literal; however, not for the concern of emotion, but for the investigation of formal values. 

Although tree stumps can be readily recognized in the foreground of “Low Tide,” the artist, in his strong ink and wash style, treats his background in a more abstract manner. He finds the basic shape of a pine tree enough to suggest its existence without attempting to define individual boughs. The same attitude is apparent in “Woods” where the chalk emphasizes vertical shapes of a forest and not specific tree species. 

Expression: Shapes, Line

The charcoal “Figure” shows more realism, but in depicting human anatomy Mr. Staffel extends beyond the muscles into the pure joy of geometric shapes emerging from the human form. This zest for the expressive is further developed in “Girl with Flowers” by Bragio Pinto and “Drawing” by William Hayth, for their subjects are subordinated to a pattern of shapes and lines. 

As evidenced in the varied styles, technical involvement is also creatively expressed. “Irish Boy” by Rhoda Medary with its economy of line creating a character essence; “Classical Head” by Ben Wolf with its one, continuous line gracefully defining a form; and “The Great Tree” by Leonhard Lahrer with its nature shapes and straight lines developing together in perfect harmony culminate this concept. 

* Date is estimated.

1971 BEAVER NEWS
“Van Vliet, Spruance Works Shown by Philadelphia Club”

The Print Club of Philadelphia is sponsoring an exhibit of the work of Benton Spruance and Clare Van Vliet from October 8 to 30. The Spruance showing will be inclusive from working studies to finished prints. The Van Vliet display will be of her most recent lithographs. 

Claire Van Vliet is a native of Canada. She received her masters of fine arts degree from Claremont College. She has taught at the Philadelphia College of Art and the University of Wisconsin. After spending five months in Scandinavia, Miss Van Vliet has returned to teach in Philadelphia. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States. 

Benton Spruance former chairman of the Beaver art department held an unchallenged position as a lithographer, teacher, and administrator until his death in 1967. Both the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Print Club have held retrospective displays of his work to familiarize the public with his artistic development. The present exhibit is aimed at adding new insights into his work. 

On Wednesday, October 27, Miss Van [Vliet’s] works will be put on display in the Gallery of the Eugenia Fuller Atwood Library. The show will deal with developmental processes, including lithographs, drawings, and watercolors. The exhibition is open to the public. Hours of the gallery are 9 to 5 p.m., Monday thru Friday; 2 to 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday. 

1971 BEAVER NEWS
“Artists Hanson and [Van Vliet] Present discussions of work” by Paula Oram

Late Wednesday afternoon, Jo Hanson showed slides and discussed Crab Orchard Cemetery, her photographic art environment. The environment is a re-creation of a rural cemetery in an area of Illinois. Ms. Hanson lived in the area until the age of 18, but did not begin thinking about the environment until 1968. “There was a wealth of information in the stones if I could learn to understand them. The information that I was getting was a record of changing value systems,” she explained.  Once the concept came together, it took about two years to do. 

She constructed the tombstones out of styrofoam by making rubbings and photographing the rubbings. She uses them to make silk screen stencils that are placed onto the styrofoam. To prepare the styrofoam, she cuts it with a hot wire. 

The cemetery surroundings are captured on photographic murals. She made a 360 degree circle as she took pictures of the view. “I put the negatives together to get the entire scene.” She placed each panel edge to edge. To complete the environment of the rural cemetery, she has included a sound track of the undercurrents of sound in the cemetery. 

The environment is at Peale House, 1811 Chestnut Street, from October 14 until December 5. 

Clare Van Vliet, bookmaker and printmaker, was also on campus last Wednesday. She is involved with the entire book processing operation. Her books consist of the writing of other people, like Kafka or Lorca, plus her own prints and are made in both cloth and paper. 

Ms. Van Vliet also designs the way in which the books are bound. She does not feel they have to be bound in the conventional sense of the word. “The binding is heavier than the paper and takes away from the actual material.” If it is bound, the book follows a controlled sequence. As a result, she places her books in boxes designed with the book in mind or a cover that the book can slip into. In this way, the book allows greater flexibility for the reader. 

Ms. Van Vliet is concerned with the entire feeling her readers get from her books. “The book should serve the type of communication you are trying to project. Everything should serve a mood.” For example, the type should be in tune with the ideas expressed. 

“There are many ways to look at my work; visually, literally, or both.”

* Date is estimated.