Messenger - Vol. 2, No. 1, Page 12
Fall 1992
Dali decks the gallery

      A series of prints of playing cards by Salvador Dali are among the
almost 200 works of art acquired by the University Gallery since last
October.
      The acquisitions, received through donations and purchases, range
from prints to sculptures, from antique to contemporary works.
      Among the gifts received this year are photography by Ansel Adams;
small sculptures or maquettes by William Zorach; a 1937 photograph of
orchestra conductor Leopold Stokowski by Ray Jones; 37 Russian and Greek
icons from Leslie Burgess and Sarah Jastak-Burgess of Wilmington; and an
18th-century, Ukranian icon from another donor.
      The donations help the gallery fulfill its role as an art center and
teaching facility, says curator Belena Chapp. The reputation of the gallery
is growing, she says, thanks to such shows as the successful "Brandywine
Valley to the Bay: Art from Private Collections" exhibition last fall and
the "University of Delaware Biennial Works on or of Paper," a juried
exhibition at the gallery that is national in scope.
      The funds generated from the works on paper show enabled the gallery
to purchase 14 works from the exhibition for its permanent collection, such
as the Rob Evans multimedia work, "Boundary Lines," Chapp says.
      "Donors, who are art lovers, appreciate the fact that their gifts
have a dual role," Chapp says. "Not only are works of art cared for
properly and displayed in appropriate settings, both here and on loan to
other institutions, but they also are used for educational purposes in
training students in a variety of fields, such as art, art history,
anthropology, museum studies and history.
      "The students learn museum standards and get hands-on experience in
conservation, research, cataloging and mounting exhibitions," she says.
                                   --Sue Swyers Moncure