Art Exhibits
DIRECTOR, CARPENTER ART GALLERIES
WITH the building of the Hopkins Center the Dartmouth student's opportunity to see the visual arts will rise, I believe, to a new order of magnitude. Whereas in the past he has had to make arduous treks to the remotest nooks and crannies of Carpenter Hall to view works of art, he will find in the future that art greets his eye daily and hourly, both on his left and on his right, as he moves in or out of this new and stimulating crossroads of campus life.
Everywhere there will be something to see. The spacious lobbies and wide corridors, the social lounges and recreational places will, I hope, literally sparkle with exhibitions and displays.
Few of us know how limitless the field of art exhibition can be, for so few of us fully realize the broad range of art in our everyday lives. Architecture, sculpture and painting are obviously art and, of course, they will be on display, front and center, in our building. But architecture, sculpture and painting are not the end of art, for in addition there are all the applied and adaptive arts that fill in and round out a richly creative civilization. Art museums also have on view Greek pots and pans, Viking ships, Medieval armor, and Colonial tables and chairs. President Eisenhower lives in a work of art, the White House, and he also flies in a work of art, the Columbine. So the exhibition program in the Hopkins Center has the broadest of possibilities. Beauty in a thousand forms can be presented to the eyes of our students. Knowledge acquired in the classroom and the library will be intensified and driven home. Many new areas of interest and study will come within the vision of Dartmouth men.
A special opportunity of the exhibition program will be the possibility of assembling visual displays of an integrating nature, exhibits that tend to bridge the gaps that seem to exist between different segments of knowledge. For example, anatomical drawings of the human figure might in part integrate art, medicine, and anthropology; photographs and models of bridges and highways would bring to- gether engineering, architecture, city planning, even history; industrial design, packaging and point-of-sale display could integrate different aspects of business and economics with psychology and art.
It is obvious that we could, and should, plan exhibits to tie in effectively with many activities of the Drama and Music Departments. In fact, let us think of the educational value of such collaborations in the Hopkins Center as the coordinated presentations of the drama, music, and visual arts of the English 18th Century, the Georgian Era; or of the modern arts today in America.
In addition to the many areas for varied and changing exhibitions there will be also in the Hopkins Center a small but first-class art gallery. Here in a strategically central main-floor location, adjoining the theater lobby and the main traffic artery of the building, there will be shown under ideal lighting and display arrangements the cream of the College Art Collection. Here the student may pause and enjoy good painting and good sculpture in a refreshingly simple and pleasing garden-court setting.
The art gallery will be serviced from well-planned work and storage areas on the lower floor, a special feature of which will be a "live storage" room. Here an interested student or visitor may view, on easily accessible racks, many other items of the College Art Collection not at the moment "on stage" in the gallery on the floor above.
Other Directors of Center Activities
I feel sure that the very fine facilities which the Hopkins Center will provide for the full enjoyment and proper care of art will so attract and please the many alumni, parents and friends of the College who now collect and treasure works of art, that the Dartmouth Collection will be rapidly and dramatically enriched by loans and gifts. We are blessed now with a small and respectable collection, but our students of 1969 will be the beneficiaries of an infinitely richer and finer collection. The heritage that began with Governor Wentworth's gift to President Eleazar Wheelock of a beautiful silver punch bowl, a magnificent example of Colonial craftsmanship, may very well grow into a treasury, in some degree comparable to those objects of beauty and inspiration that the Florentine Academy placed before the eyes of students named da Vinci and Bruonarroti.
RICHARD E. WAGNER Assistant Professor of Art
PROF. RAY NASH Director, Graphic Arts Workshop
PROF. DONALD W. WENDLANDTDirector, Dartmouth College BandDirector, Handel Society Orchestra
DAVID R. FULLER Instructor in Music
Professor Churchill P. Lathrop
