| BY SALLY ACHARYA The American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center is a place for the unexpected and the unusual. For reminding us that art is about opening our eyes and experiencing the world in entirely new ways. So it’s fitting that as soon as visitors enter, they are greeted not only by bold paintings and master drawings, but by a mystery. Wafting through the galleries from somewhere unseen is a tantalizing woodsy aroma, redolent of the depths of the forest. One is tempted to hunt through each gallery, detective-style, until the mystery is solved. Such a search would be a whirlwind tour of styles, from historically important paintings to some of the most fascinating work on today’s cutting edge. But it doesn’t seem possible to move quickly through this space. Everywhere are sights that force a visitor to stop, look, and wonder. After all, this is the region’s largest university facility for exhibiting art—so it doesn’t open with one exhibit, but with five, spread generously around three vast floors of gallery space.
Gene Davis, Mardi Gras, 1983, acrylic on unbleached canvas, 75.75 inches by 92.5 inches, Katzen Collection
|
The visit begins, of course, with the Katzens. A First Look: David Bates, Gene Davis, Nancy Graves, and Master Drawings from the Katzen Collection presents a selection from the rich trove of contemporary painting and sculpture collected by Dr. Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen. “It’s just one small tip of the iceberg,” says Jack Rasmussen, director and curator of the museum. But it’s a small tip with some large names. Gene Davis is well known to art historians for his clean, vibrant striped paintings, part of the famed Washington Color School that put the nation’s capital on the artistic map in the 1960s. He also taught at AU around the time that Myrtle Katzen studied on campus, and the Katzens have collected his work extensively. They also have in-depth collections of work by Nancy Graves, renowned for lively sculptural collages often created from salvaged material, and figurative painter David Bates, who specializes in landscapes and still lifes. One common denominator, Rasmussen says: “All of these works are bright, colorful, and show a real concern for craft, technique, and skill.” Different facets of their collection will be shown over time. The Katzens have, for instance, collected the world’s greatest names in contemporary glass, whose work will be shown in January in the sparkling, sunlit atrium. 
Nancy Graves, Botany (Australia Series),1985, oil, acrylic, and glitter on canvas with painted aluminum sculpture, 41 inches by 121 inches by 11.5 inches, Katzen Collection Leaving the Katzen exhibition and climbing to the second floor, the woodsy aroma gets stronger. Its source can’t possibly be the vibrant twentieth-century paintings in the exhibit Living Legacy: 60 Years of the Watkins Collection, but this is definitely another place to pause. For most of its 60 years, the 4,500-plus piece Watkins Collection has been the treasure in AU’s attic: carefully stored, but seldom seen except on special occasions. No other institution has focused on Washington art like the collection named for C. Law Watkins, who was instrumental in the early years of the Phillips Collection and convinced AU to become one of the nation’s first universities to offer a master’s degree in art, offered jointly with the Phillips. Watkins headed the newly created art department until his untimely death in 1945, when friends created a collection by donating work in his honor. “It was a very hip department,” says curator Jonathan Bucci. “In the 1950s, AU was where it was at in terms of contemporary art.” As it has grown, the collection “has taken on a more historical significance for the city,” Bucci says. “But I feel like it’s this secret most people don’t know about. Now we’re in this prominent location in this wonderful new museum. People will really get a chance to see what we have.” continued next page top |
