Page 8 DTH Omnibus
Thursday November 29, 1990
Worth the Wai
Ackland brinas culture with re-ODenina
By RANDY BASINGER
Arts Coordinator
w
hen the Ackland
Art Museum re
opens its renovated
doors to the public,
students will have
their first opportunity to see the
museaum's interior and its collection
of artwork since the $3 million reno
vations began three years ago.
The museum, located on Colum
bia Street, was originally intended for
Duke University. When William
Hayes Ackland, the museum's
namesake, died in 1940, his will
specified that his entire estate was to
be used to construct a memorial art
building and to acquire objects for
exhibition. Duke was to be the ben
eficiary of the Ackland bequest, but
the school rejected the gift, and the
University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill fought a legal battle for
the next six years with Rollins College
in Florida before being awarded the
bequest.
All told, the University received
$ 1 ,300,000, plus an accumulation of
interest. The Ackland Art Center
was constructed at a cost of more than
$800,000 and opened its doors on
September 20, 1958.
The museum remained open until
September 6, 1987, when it closed for
f
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Special to Omnibus David Minton
The Robert L. Myers Gallery of Nineteenth Century Art is one of the eight galleries on the main floor of the Ackland Art Museum. 'Cleopatra and the
Peasant,' by Eugene Delcroix, on the far left, is one of the most famous pieces in the museum. You can also see this painting on the cover of the new
Chapel Hill phone book.
the renovations that, while not ex
tending beyond the original founda
tion walls, have nearly doubled its
space for showing art. Despite the
expense of the renovation project,
Dr. Charles Millard, Ackland direc
tor, said the buying power of the
Ackland had not been hurt.
"The funds for the renovation were
allocated by the University specifi
cally for that purpose," Dr. Millard
said. "The money I need to raise now
is for the operating expenses."
The main floor of the Ackland
houses eight galleries for viewing
European and American paintings
and sculpture from the last six cen
turies. The second floor contains a study
center for the museum's collection of
works on paper, storage areas, con
servation facilities and a large gallery
for changing exhibitions selected from
the more than 10,000 prints, drawings
and photographs in the Ackland
collection.
"The important paintings, sculp
tures, everything will be on exhibi
tion," Dr. Millard said. "Works on
paper are a different category. (They)
are very senstive to light, so they can
only be shown for a short period of
time. We will show a small percent
age of those works in the upper gallery,
so that over a large period of time a
large volume of these will be shown."
Joe Lucchesi, a student intern at
the museum, said, "This (upper) gal
lery shows the range and depth of the
exhibition."
The Ackland's famous works in
clude Eugene Delacroix's "Cleopatra
and the Peasant," which will appear
on the cover of the new Chapel Hill
phone book. This work was one of the
many cleaned and restored while the
museum was closed.
During the renovation, the mu
seum also received "Theta Beta," a 9-by-2
1 foot painting by American ab
stract artist Morris Louis. The paint
ing was the gift of Louis' widow,
Marcella Brenner, and holds a major
place in the museum's Charles and
Isabel Eaton Gallery for 20th Century
art.
"We are deeply grateful for Mrs.
Brenner's generosity," Millard said.
'"Theta Beta' transforms the
Ackland's collection of contemporary
art. For the first time, the museum
will be able to show a major example
of American color abstraction."
In July 1986, Millard became the
fourth director in the Ackland's his
tory and immediately took on the $3
million renovation project. With the
re-opening, Millard, an expert on
contemporary art and 1 9th- and 20th
century sculpture, will oversee the
more than
12,000 paintings, sculptures, prints,
drawings, photographs and pieces of
decorative art, as well as its 18-member
staff.
"I think the way the museum de
velops depends on how the members
of the staff respond to the expanded
spaces and to their own imagination
and desires forprograms," Millard said,
"It is a group effort and the shape the
Ackland takes will be given by the
staff."
Millard said he is interested in
pulling in more of the community
now that there is a building to bring
people to. He even hopes to bring the
power of the exhibition to the state as
a whole.
"I would like us to reach all the
people we can," he said.
Ray Williams, curator of educa
tion, said: "We have always run small-
scale exhibitions of the permanent
collections that can be used by the
departments (at the University). We
are interested in having temporary
exhibitions to support teaching
courses.
"If you are involved with a student
organization and wanted a tour, we
could arrange that," Williams said. "If
an RA wanted to arrange for a dorm
hall tour, we could arrange that. We
want people to have a greater aware-
museum's collection of
ness of the Ackland as a community
resource."
To achieve this, the museum will
expand its educational programs,
promoting activites like a Saturday
morning story hour for children and
their families twice a month.
"The story hour will use picture
books and stories to better explain
pieces of the museum's collection,"
Williams said. "For example, the
Ackland has a new dragon sculpture
from Thailand that we might intro
duce with an Asian story about a
dragon."
In addition, the Downtown
Commission's Arts at Lunch series
will be held at the Ackland twice a
month and the museum is organizing
a Young Associates membership
group.
"This group is for people who want
to learn more about art, be sociable
and have fun," said Laura Kreps, an
Ackland volunteer staff member who
is helping to organize the group. "We
should probably call them the
Ackland Young-ish Associates, since
the age range is from 'twenty-some-
thing' to 'forty-something.'"
With the reopening ceremonies
just around the corner, the Ackland
Art Museum is poised to become once
again a rorce in inapel Mill s art
world.
Gallery debut breathes life into a.
By ISABEL BARBUK
Staff Writer
he Ackland Art Museum,
located on Columbia Street,
represents the University of
North Carolina at Chapel
Hill's own display of "serious
culture." Closed since 1987 for reno
vation, it re-opens this week as a
facility for students and the commu
nity alike.
It contains a large section devoted
to European art, and in March will
open galleries devoted to Ancient
Greek, Roman, Asian and Oriental
works. Basically, the Ackland's major
premise is to give a broad view of art
through the ages.
The gallery is divided between two
floors. On the upper level is a rotating
exhibition devoted to drawings. Like
the rest of the gallery, the works are
displayed on a chronological time
scale, beginning in the 16th century
and working up to the contemporary.
The pictures incorporate a variety of
med ia, but utilize primarily pencil and
ink. Of particular interest are the 1 7th
and 18th-century sections, which il
lustrate the influence of the classical
image on artists of these periods.
Unfortunately, the earlier works
tend to be somewhat drowned by their
frames. Delicate pencil drawings,
minutely detailed, tend to disappear
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Yes, you've seen it, you've driven by it, you've walked past it, but now ycu cc
Museum. If you've read anything on this page, you might have figured cut tf
many years of being closed.
when surrounded by heavy gold.
i Some aspects of the contemporary
section are interesting, in particular
the attempt to get away from precon
ceived notions of modern art. How
ever, one wonders why they chose to
display some of these prints over oth
ers. The pictures vary greatly in qual
ity, yet the gallery has a collection of
more than 10,000 drawings, prints
and photographs from which to draw
excellence.
This section of the gallery relies on
intimacy to draw the viewer in. Un
fortunately, the somewhat close at
mosphere means the pictures lose some
of their power. The impression one
gets is that of entering a library rather
than an art gallery studious rather
than inspiring.
Downstairs, eight galleries are de
voted to painting and sculpture. This
too is ordered chronologically, but is
also divided by country. This is com
mendable, as style in art revolves
around certain schools of thought.
Consequently, 17th-Century Dutch
art has its own distinctive quality, but
hardly resembles 17th-Century French
art. Perhaps the Ackland should also
look at subdividing the upper gallery
drawings as well.
The journey of art through time
starts with a short look at the Middle
Ages. These works incorporate largely
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religious themes and a lot of gold.
Wisely, the gallery swiftly moves into
the High Renaissance and nth-Century
art. This section is full of wonder
ful Baroque paintings with vibrant
colors and considerable power.
A divided gallery continues the
journey. One wall is devoted to Dutch
17th-Century art, the other to the
French and Italian 1 8th Century. Th is
mixture works surprisingly well, with
the puritanical and sober aspects of
the Flemish works juxtaposed with
the overly-romantic 18th-Century
pictures. Works like "Venus Disarm
ing Cupid," by Jacopo Anigani,
demonstrate the neo-classical learn
ings in art of this period. The picture's
soft lines and muted colors are ro
manticized, idealistic and pleasing to
the eye.
The 1 9th-Century Robert L. Myers
gallery more flaunts than simply il
lustrates the Ackland's ability to
purchase major works of art. Among
its artifacts, it counts two superb
samples "Cleopatra and the Peas
ant" by Eugene Delacroix and "The
Call to Arms" by French sculptor
Auguste Rodin.
The Delacroix is a fine example of
his work, excessively vivid in imagery
and lurid in color, a powerful picture
of an intimate scene. The Rodin
an early work commemorating the
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