Updates from the Frances Lehman Loeb

Lauren Tennenbaum Guest Writer

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center boasts an impressive 16,000 pieces in its collection, yet it has only enough gallery space to properly display around three percent of this collection at a time. Therefore, there are many decisions for those in charge of the FLLAC to make regarding which of Vassar’s works will hang on the gallery walls. The effort is no small undertaking, and works rotate often.

Choosing works to display in the permanent collection is a matter of “taking a closer look, and saying, ‘Hey, this is pretty good,’” said Mundy. The way a painting interacts with its surroundings is also always considered in the selection process. The following is a brief catalogue of some of the notable pieces currently in the gallery.

Paul Cézanne’s “Milk Can and Apples” is currently on short loan from the Museum of Modern Art, in exchange for Edvard Munch’s “The Seine at St. Cloud,” a treasure of Vassar’s vast collection.

The Twentieth Century gallery flaunts abstraction on a wall which was dominated only a few weeks ago by the hyper-realism of Alfred Lesley’s towering self portrait and Philip Pearlstein’s larger-than-life nudes.

Bold, outwardly extending rays radiate from an almost-blinding central fixation point in Ross Bleckner’s 1990 oil on linen, “Symbols of the Sun and Other Planets,” a piece with a distinct and hypnotic ebb. In turn, the radiating energy from Bleckner’s piece is absorbed by the opaque, matte application of a somewhat ordinary fleshy tan color in Jules Olitski’s “Embarked II,” a 1972 work of acrylic on canvas. Streaks of vibrant color emerge alongside the large field of tan and provide a jarring distraction, suggesting the possibility of peeling away the oppressive mass of fleshy tan like a layer of dead skin to reveal more vibrant, raw streaks of color beneath.

This is the first time the gallery has displayed this Olitski work, after interest in the painting was renewed by a visiting Japanese curator’s enthusiasm for the piece.

Joan Mitchell’s “Lyric,” hung next to the Olitski, is a burst of color and abstract form. “Mitchell is an artist who has had a re-evaluation in recent years,” said Director of the FLLAC James Mundy, who explained that for a long time, Mitchell was not considered as important as her Abstract Expressionist male counterparts, namely Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning.

The Cézanne hangs in another section of the Twentieth Century gallery, and was loaned to the FLLAC after the Art Center initially turned down the MoMA’s request to borrow “The Seine at St. Cloud” for their Munch exhibit. This was due to the Munch painting already having been scheduled to go out on loan to an exhibit in Chicago at a later date.

According to Mundy, this sort of mutual loan is “not that common an occurrence.” Therefore, Vassar is fortunate to have a mature work by such a famous artist, even if only for a short period of time. “Milk Can and Apples” will return to the MoMA on May 14.

One upcoming piece to look out for in the galleries is Cindy Sherman’s 1994 color photo“Untitled #304,” which has been scheduled for display soon, after a faculty request.