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‘Power of Line’ exhibit opens Friday at UI Museum of Art

05-08-2008 | Fine Arts

Prints from the collection of J. Thomas and Debra Gabrielson Lee take center stage in a new University of Iowa Museum of Art exhibition, “The Power of Line: European and American Etching Revival Prints from the Lee Collection," opening Friday.

The show features more than 50 etchings by artists including Thomas Moran, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Francis Seymour Haden, Henry Farrer, Charles Adams Platt and Mary Nimmo Moran.

A free, public opening reception will be held in the museum at 3:30 p.m. Friday. The exhibit in the museum’s Hoover-Paul Gallery runs through Sept. 28.

The Lee Collection is composed of more than 300 etchings and books from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including works by many of the most important artists of the period.

Though focused on American prints, the collection also contains an array of etchings by notable European artists of the time. The collection was given to the museum in 2006 and joins more than 6,000 works on paper in the museum's permanent collection.

"The Lee gift greatly enhances an area of the UIMA collection, making it a wonderful research-oriented group," says Kathleen Edwards, the museum’s chief curator.

"The Power of Line" offers a glimpse into the Lee Collection, with emphasis on its dominant themes and strengths. Ranging from scenes of everyday life to maritime vistas and landscapes, the works in the show provide an overview of Etching Revival practices.

Beginning in England and France in the 1840s and 1850s, the Etching Revival drew on traditions from the 17th century, when etching was an important artistic process for Rembrandt and other artists. After that time, etching became a reproductive tool until the revival artists began using it for original prints. The movement spread to the United States in the 1870s.

"Etching Revival artists looked at etching in a different way, exploiting the medium's creative potential to make original works that invoked moods and emotions," Edwards says.

The UI Museum of Art is located on North Riverside Drive in Iowa City. The museum is open noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, and noon to 9 p.m. Thursday and Friday. Admission is free. Public metered parking is available in UI parking lots west and north of the museum.