History hanging on the walls

From time to time, new exhibits move into the Jundt Art Museum on the west edge of the Gonzaga campus. In the winter, it was the Holy Family exhibit. Before this, the Corita exhibit dominated the galleries.

But now Gonzaga's Collection Additions has arrived, and brings with it not only a series of new works to add to the museum's ever-expanding collection, but also works of art from across artistic eras and genres, providing a new experience to anyone who chooses to partake.

Opening on Jan. 22, the Collection Additions exhibit is a large display of all the artwork acquired by the museum, either through grants, as gifts, or simple purchases, over the past several years.

In the Jundt Galleries these works span not only a variety of different artistic media and ages, but also overall technique and style, demonstrating a broad survey of numerous forms of painting, printing and photography.

"We always get work that really complements the rest of the collection," said Karen Kaiser, the Assistant Curator for Education at Jundt.

A significant amount of work in the Collection Additions are prints of various sorts.

"A bulk of our collection is works on paper — lithographs and relief prints," Kaiser said.

One work, "Atvatabar," by Frank Stella, utilizes "just about every print technique."
Another work, "The Anunciation," by Albrecht Durer, dates to the 16th century.

"He was one of the first Renaissance printmakers," Kaiser said. "He really took the art of print making and really elevated it." 

It is not only full of symbolism but also demonstrates the early transition of printmaking from a cheap necessity to an art form.

With other such influential artists, from Edward Steichen to Harriet Sanderson, the new additions to the Jundt collection represent an impressive and diverse exhibit.

Even with a large focus on print-making, the gallery shows a wide range of art forms. A particularly impressive work by Neil Welliver shows how complex printing can be. Using the technique of reduction printing, by which a multicolor print is generated by using different colors on the same block at different stages, Welliver generated a beautiful landscape using 22 separate colors. That is, he printed each of the colors in 22 stages.

Less impressive but just as important to the collection is a small series of prints, named "Print of Spokane." 

"We didn't know anything about them," Kaiser said.

She pointed out one print set aside from the others, denoting that this particular print had entered the collection at Gonzaga long before the rest of the series.

"[The print] was already part of our collection, but not included in the portfolio [of other prints]," she said.

She mentions that this separate print could have been a reject from the portfolio, or simply one that ceased being published.

"A kind of curiousity," Kaiser said.

Other impressive works in the collection include several by Giovanni Batista Piranesi, an architecturally influenced printmaker who demonstrates the height of Renaissance perspective.

"A lot of it is kind of showing off," Kaiser said, with regard to Piranesi's extremely dramatic use of the relatively new technique of relative size.

"[He] kind of sets up the standard for the ‘creepy prison,'" motif we often see in movies and books, Kaiser said.

For all these major works, however, the admission to the Collection Additions exhibit remains free of charge.

"We have this collection that's available to everyone," Kaiser said.

It isn't just free for Gonzaga students.  The general public can also attend free of charge. The museum as a whole attempts to maintain a cohesive exhibit while expanding their horizons as they acquire new pieces.

"We say new, but only for the collection," Kaiser said, referring to the half-millennium of work represented the Collection Additions.

As more gifts are acquired and more pieces purchased or granted, the collection continues to grow, a free museum whose purpose is to enlighten the public. It's history hanging on the walls.