Venus de Milo comes to the Shwader Building lobby!

Curator Jacobs is digging, discovering plenty of art gems on campus

Myhren Gallery to host "Collection Labs"

"In Limbo" exhibition gives DU students access to a world-class collection of contemporary art

Victoria H. Myhren supports visual arts at DU

Venus de Milo comes to the Shwader Building lobby!

Students and gallery visitors arriving in the Shwader Art Building this fall are finding a full-size, high-quality plaster cast of the Venus de Milo on display in the lobby. The cast was obtained by the University ca.1885, and has been used in drawing instruction for at least 50 years—possibly longer. It has survived in miraculously good condition, despite multiple layers of overpainting and whitewash. At the beginning of the summer, the lower portions remained caked with several layers of oil paint and artist’s gesso, nearly all of which were removed during the first six weeks of the apprenticeship. The technical issues faced in this cleaning were extremely similar to those faced on the Thompson mural (see above), which also consists of water-based media applied over plaster, with overlying layers of oil-based media to be removed.

During the summer of 2007, the Venus was used as a teaching tool for conservation students. Final touches included minor in-painting to restore the original painted surface to a uniform color. The Venus will continue to be displayed in the main lobby of the Shwayder Building, where it is still used as a model for drawing classes.

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Curator Jacobs is digging, discovering plenty of art gems on campus
By Jordan Ames

This article originally appeared in The Source, February 2007. 

For DU art curator Dan Jacobs, working with DU’s extensive art collection is a bit like rummaging through Grandma’s attic. He’s discovered thousands of unique pieces tucked away throughout campus, from English engravings to an uncast sculpture relief.

Jacobs, director of the Myhren Gallery, is working to catalogue, preserve and coordinate the display of art works scattered — and sometimes forgotten — across campus.

“These are unique resources,” Jacobs says of the donated art. “My mission is to collect, re-house and preserve these works so that they will be available for everyone to enjoy.”

Jacobs initially worked with cataloging specialist Diane Kotowski to inventory, photograph and safely store more than 1,000 pieces in the School of Art and Art History’s collection.

“Many of the pieces were badly framed or matted with acidic paper, which would eventually destroy them,” Jacobs says.

He removed the pieces from dangerous matting and is in the process of re-matting them into standard sizes so they can be easily handled and displayed.

One piece, an Andy Warhol silkscreen poster for the 1967 Lincoln Center Film Festival, will be used in winter-quarter Collections Lab events, which allow attendees to experience fine art prints from the DU collection in an intimate, hands-on setting facilitated by art scholars, print collectors and practicing artists.

Jacobs coordinated the cleaning and restoration of two 19th century English landscape engravings from the chancellor’s office. The 1810 hand-colored etchings of Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire, England, are by William Frederick Wells, one of the first generation of watercolor artists. Wells’ art was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 1795 to 1813.

“The engravings had been hanging on the wall of the chancellor’s office for 50 or 60 years,” Jacobs says. “We sent them out to a private conservator who washed them to remove the decades of dirt.

“The process costs more than the prints are worth, but we must consider the artistic value,” Jacobs adds. “These prints are irreplaceable, and we can use them in classes to teach about printmaking.”

Jacobs also recently helped administrators at the Women’s College select and display works donated by Colorado Women’s College professor Helen Davis.

Currently, Jacobs is working with Newman Center Executive Director Stephen Seifert to frame a 15th century Italian manuscript and is seeking funding for completion of two other projects for the Newman Center — bronze casting of a plaster relief of Trio and Tone Shapes, a 1939 work by former adjunct professor Arnold Ronnebeck, and the installation of a pedestal and lighting for Harlequin, a sculpture by alumna Marion Buchan.

Jacobs’ work is financed by project-specific grants and gifts, and a small amount of funding from the University. He would not put a value on the collection.

“[Jacobs] has wonderful ideas about making the collections and the gallery better serve the entire DU community,” says Annette Stott, director of the School of Art and Art History. “He has been making great progress with the organization, care and documentation of the collection, as well as connecting with other departments and programs to initiate joint endeavors.”

“My goal is not to control the collection or decorate the campus,” Jacobs says, “but to support and serve as a resource for organizations around campus as they care for and display works.” 

Comfort, make way for cool

Many DU students and alumni will remember the fabulously retro chairs in Penrose Library.


PHOTO BY: Chris Tomeo

Dan Jacobs borrowed these retro chairs for an art exhibit and now they're at home in Penrose Library.

Students in Dan Jacobs’ fall-quarter Marsico Curatorial Practicum course borrowed two of the chairs for the recent “Negotiating Reality” exhibit at the Myhren Gallery. The students spent hours cleaning the chairs and ridding them of 40 years of grime.

Jacobs was interested in learning more about the chairs and turned to Westword art critic Michael Paglia, an expert on modern design. Paglia learned that the chairs, called “pastil” chairs and nicknamed “gyro” chairs, were produced in 1967–68 by Finnish designer Eero Aarnio. The chairs were returned to production in 1990. New pastil chairs sell for $629–$1,200.

Now, University Archivist Steve Fisher has given DU’s vintage chairs a more prominent home on the library’s main fl oor near the exhibit cases.

“We actually knew they were designer furniture but had not given much thought to bringing them out of hiding until the exhibit in the gallery came about,” Fisher says. “It gave us a good excuse to think about putting them back in a more visible place.”

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Myhren Gallery to host "Collection Labs"

Thursday, Jan. 18, 2007

Press information originally released January 2007

In the traditional master print workshop, expert printers support the work of other artists. This presents a special challenge, in which the collaborative process is just as important as technical skill. Master printer Susan Hover Oehme and Bill van Straaten, founder of the Riverhouse Editions studio in Steamboat Springs, Colo., spoke about that process during the first installment of the "Collections Lab" educational series, and explained how they've created a supportive environment for more than 60 visiting artists over the years.

Attendees had the opportunity to examine both Riverhouse prints and historic prints from DU's University Art Collections. Prior to the talk, from 6-7 p.m., DU print students demonstrated the carborundum printing process on a working press installed in the Collections Lab.

The Collections Labs program is based directly upon the art collections of the University of Denver. A growing resource, the University Art Collections are used in exhibitions, DU classrooms, and in the training of visual artists. The Collections Lab program brings artworks from the collections into informal learning situations for a wider audience. Attendees will experience fine art prints in an intimate, hands-on setting, led by distinguished scholars, print collectors and practicing artists.

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In Limbo exhibition developed in partnership of Kent and Vicki Logan, University of Denver, Denver Art Museum, giving DU students access to a world-class collection of contemporary art.

By Leslie Petrovski, BA ’82, MA ’91

Originally published Fall, 2004, in DU Magazine. Click here for article

Inside the well-ordered slide library at the University of Denver School of Art and Art History, faculty member Gwen Chanzit points to the flat expanse of a computer screen. "That one," she says. Beth Kellogg, a second-year graduate student who oversees the library's digital images, expands the picture-a portrait of a couple cutting their wedding cake.

"They don't look very happy, do they?" Chanzit observes. The painting, 'The Wedding Picture' by Bo Bartlett, places the couple against a backdrop of sky. The groom seems resigned and the bride appears preoccupied. The tension in the piece-the overriding sense of ambivalence and emotional distance-is emblematic of the works selected for an upcoming student-curated exhibition in DU's Victoria H. Myhren Gallery.

Titled "In Limbo," the exhibition of works collected by Vicki and Kent Logan will open in January 2005. It is the result of a unique collaboration between the University of Denver, the Denver Art Museum (DAM) and the Logans, world-renowned collectors of contemporary art who have "fractionally gifted and promised" more than 200 works to the museum.

The three-way partnership expands the long relationship between DU and DAM, which historically has consisted of leveraging the intellectual resources of both institutions for mutual benefit. For example, Chanzit maintains dual roles at both the University and DAM. (Chanzit is a senior lecturer of modern art and museum studies at DU as well as curator of modern and contemporary art at the Denver Art Museum.) Other DAM curators teach at DU in an adjunct capacity.

The synergies between the two institutions are obvious: DU students have the chance to intern at the museum, and some ultimately gain full-time employment there. Students also get behind-the-scenes knowledge of how the Denver Art Museum works. Museum curators, in turn, have access to DU's slide library, Penrose Library and a pool of educated volunteers and interns.

The Logan-DU connection is not so much one of six degrees of separation but one or two. Victoria Myhren, BFA '00, chair of the Myhren Gallery Advisory Board and wife of DU Trustee Trygve Myhren, initially suggested the partnership. Soon, a retinue of DU emissaries was heading to the Logans' home to discuss possibilities. Given the University's history with the Denver Art Museum, the expanded relationship seemed natural.

Out of that summit came the first DUDAM- Logan exhibition: "Robert Colescott and Glenn Ligon from the Logan Collection," which opened at the Myhren Gallery last January and was curated by Gallery Director Shannen Hill.

"Art that's made today doesn't have the benefit of hindsight," Kent Logan says. "It needs to be shown. We want exhibitions staged from the collection. We want fresh eyes to look at the collection and see what they see in it."

Although they had lived most of their adult lives in New York City, it was when the Logans moved to San Francisco that they immersed themselves in contemporary art. The way Kent describes it, he and Vicki were on an afternoon gallery walk in San Francisco when they began their "descent into the quicksand." Starting with a selection of works by local figurative artists, the Logans amassed about 250 pieces between 1993 and 1997. At the end of that year, the Logans made their first gift to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

In ensuing years, the Logans' collection exploded to about 900 pieces-representing the work of 200 artists-two-thirds of which were created in the 1980s and 1990s. Although the collection includes more than 30 pieces by the late Andy Warhol, the Logans focused their acquisitions on living artists, making their collection a kind of "Who's Who" of American, European and Asian contemporary art.

Largely self-taught collectors, the couple has picked through the landscape of the contemporary art world without the help of art consultants and made remarkable choices along the way. They bought art they enjoyed, assuming, Kent Logan says, that it would have little or no value. But, the Logans estimate that their collection has since tripled in value, thanks largely to a rebounding contemporary art market.

"They're prescient," remarks Dianne Vanderlip, the Addison Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Denver Art Museum. "They often come across people before I do, and I'm very up on things." The magazine ARTnews regularly lists the couple in its annual tally of the top 200 art collectors in the world.

In 2000, after Kent Logan retired from the San Francisco-based Montgomery Securities, the couple moved to Vail, Colo., and in December 2001, they made their gift to the Denver Art Museum.

Students in Chanzit's spring quarter curatorial practicum course experienced the complete process of designing "In Limbo"-the University's first student-curated exhibition based on the Denver Art Museum's Logan Collection and the Logans' personal holdings. Students handled the entire exhibition process, from choosing the theme and building a tabletop gallery model to developing a press kit and arranging art loans. Working with images from the Logan Collection that had been scanned into the University's online art and image organizer, students created individual virtual exhibitions on their own before coming together to hash out the specifics of their group exhibit. The Logans and DAM experts visited the class to discuss different aspects of mounting an exhibition.

It took a few late nights, but the 15 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the course ultimately agreed on a final checklist of art for "In Limbo." They settled on 22 works by 13 artists, including the Palestinian-born feminist Mona Hatoum and U.S. artists Cindy Sherman and John Currin.

"There were definitely times of frustration," explains Kellogg, who took the class. "It was a practicum in every way. We're all very proud of what we've done. It was an amazing experience."

Opportunities abound for the DU-DAM Logan triptych, including future classes, joint exhibitions and research projects. Moreover, when "In Limbo" opens, it will afford DU's entire community-students, faculty and staff alike-the chance to view art history in the making.

"First-year writing classes typically come to the gallery and write about images," explains Annette Stott, director of DU's School of Art and Art History. "Art classes visit the gallery to discuss many different aspects of the exhibitions that relate to the topics of their classes. Having the work of world-class artists right here in our own gallery provides a great opportunity for students to study first-hand the ideas and techniques of artists worldwide."

Kent Logan views his collection not as a personal stash but as a resource to share. And bringing the bright, ingenious eyes of freshly trained curators to the collection is part of his mission.

"If half of our collection stands the test of time, we will have done really well," he says. "But, it has to be shown to contextualize anything."

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Victoria H. Myhren supports visual arts at DU

Originally posted 2002

The principal art gallery at the University of Denver's School of Art and Art History was named in honor of Victoria H. Myhren in 2001. In the fall of 2000, soon after completing her bachelor of fine arts degree with a concentration in art history at the University of Denver, Vicki and husband Trygve had funded a generous endowment to support the gallery. In addition, the Myhrens provided a challenge grant of $50,000 to remodel the lobby of the Shwayder Art Building, converting it into an exhibition venue for student work. Their generosity makes it possible for the Victoria H. Myhren Gallery to mount major exhibitions and institute educational programming for the public and for the University community.

Victoria H. Myhren
Myhren has had a life-long love of the visual arts. As a young woman traveling with her aunt, a serious contemporary art collector, she had the fortune to meet both Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore. After studying art history in California and at the Colorado Women's College, Vicki became the director of the Joseph Magnin Art Galleries, later founding the Hamilton Lawler Gallery. She continues to serve as curator of the Jones International corporate collection. She also serves as a staff aid in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Denver Art Museum and Chairs the Advisory Board of the Victoria H. Myhren Gallery.

Victoria Myhren has embraced a number of philanthropic causes outside the visual arts as well. She has led efforts in New York to raise millions of dollars for hunger relief and has promoted awareness of domestic violence and other women's issues in Colorado and Rhode Island. She is a former Grand Marshall of the Beaux Arts Ball, an annual event to benefit Denver's National Jewish Hospital.

At the University of Denver (where Trygve has served on the Board of Trustees since 1995), the Myhrens have made significant contributions to a number of major programs and projects, including the Daniels College of Business, the Graduate School of International Studies, and the Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium.

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