Symposium speakers discuss museum, culture

Scholars explored the efforts and success of Herman B Wells, Paul Sachs and Henry Hope in bringing the IU Art Museum to campus during a symposium last Friday in the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts.

Carrie Schwier, assistant archivist at the Office of University Archives and Records Management, spoke about how World War II transformed the former pastoral University into a “citizen of the world.”

Because of the influx of refugees on campus due to WWII, there was a drastic increase of University efforts to help assimilate them into the student population, she said.

James Capshew, associate professor in the IU Department of History and Philosophy of Science, discussed how Wells, Sachs and Hope made IU the cultural center that it is today.

“Wells wanted, ‘to widen the cultural front until every taxpayer in every county gets some return from the state university,’” Capshew said.

Capshew said one of the reasons Hope was hired at the School of Fine Arts was the recommendation of Sachs.

David Alan Brown, curator of Italian paintings at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., focused his talk on Sachs, Hope’s professor.

Sachs taught a course at Harvard University about the modern art museum. It was Sachs who taught soon-to-be influential students about modern museum organization, Brown said.

“Through the impact he had on many of his disciples, Sachs was largely responsible for the way we acquire, present and even look at the art,” Brown said.

Jenny McComas, curator of Western art after 1800 at the museum, tied together the other talks by showing how IU cultivated culture by creating the museum.

Despite size and age differences, both the old and new museums represented a bridge between a museum and education, she said.

“To teach art effectively, some visual experience with original works of art must be provided,” McComas said, quoting Hope.

Ivy Tech Community College instructor Taresah Youngman said he enjoyed the symposium lectures.

“I think it’s really interesting to see how they were all connected,” Youngman said.