UpDate - Vol. 11, No. 18, Page 6
February 6, 1992
DaCunha gives 2 painings for display in Honors lounge

     Julio daCunha has been involved with the University Honors Program
since its inception 15 years ago. The professor emeritus has left an
enduring legacy, not only of teaching but of his art.
     DaCunha presented two of his paintings, "Aspects of the University
of Delaware," that mirror each other to the University and they hang in
the Honors Center first-floor study lounge.
     His objective with the works was to symbolize the many components
of University life and to portray the University as a changing, fluid
institution, according to daCunha.
     For example, in one painting, the upper left has dark forms that
suggest fists and upraised arms, denoting the "restlessness of different
constituencies within the University at different times."
     Its counterpart, on the other hand, is lighter and brighter in
color and feeling, with symbols of athletic events.
     Central to each painting is the figure of a professor, who
personifies the faculty, the core of the University, according to
daCunha. Other symbols broadly portray different disciplines, from the
performing arts to earth sciences to engineering and philosophy.
     The first painting has a rendering of Old College, the heart of the
University's past and present, and the other Mitchell Hall, as the
center for cultural events.  Plows, personifying physical change in the
first, and the study of the environment in the other, are in both
paintings.
     DaCunha worked on the paintings over the course of a year and
presented them on the day of his retirement, after 35 years of teaching
at the University.  -Sue Moncure