Admiring one of the paintings from the Cosla Collection on display in the University Art Gallery are, from left, Teresa Rodriguez, acting director of the Art Galleries, Exhibition Assistant Jacob Dillard and Registration Assistant Martha Kelshaw. The painting is "Holy Kinship Panel," a 1525 oil on panel with gold leaf.
Forty years after its first campus exhibition, the Cosla
Collection is once again on display for art lovers to enjoy. Twenty-one
16th- through 19th-century European oil paintings from the Dr. and Mrs.
Oscar K. Cosla Collection have been restored to their original beauty
and can be seen in the University Art Gallery through Oct. 19. The paintings
will be permanently housed in the lobby of the Alexander Kasser Theater,
once it is completed in 2004.
The paintings are part of a 240-year-old collection donated to the University
by the Coslas in 1962. Five more large paintings and other smaller ones
from the collection, as well as their frames, will be restored when funds
become available, according to Teresa Rodriguez of the Art Galleries.
The collection can be traced back to Italy when several pieces were given
to Anne de Clerici as a dowry in 1760 for her marriage to William Cosla
of Romania. "The collection had since been enriched by at least four
generations of the Cosla family," Rodriguez said. "The collection
was under threat of destruction during World War II, prompting the family
to move it from place to place until a safe haven was found in San Francisco,
where Mrs. Cosla was born."
The collection was first displayed on campus when it was donated. Geoffrey
Newman, dean of the School of the Arts, rediscovered the paintings about
14 years ago and was instrumental in getting the restoration process underway.
"Some of the work, particularly the earlier pieces, are typical of
art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance period," he said. "Some
of the subject matter and techniques tend to be Biblical in orientation
and are traditional for that time."
Anne Betty Weinshenker of Art and Design agreed. "These paintings represent a part of the western heritage that students usually do not encounter unless they go to a museum," she said."While many are religious in nature--traditional, devotional images--there also are some portraits and landscapes."
Last year, students in Weinshenker's "Resources and Methods of Research in Art" class had an opportunity to uncover more history about the collection when they used it for a project in which they researched the artists who made the paintings and the artists who inspired them. "They were very interested in finding out what was going on in the pieces," she said. "And the students became excited when they uncovered information about the pieces that had not yet been documented."
Rodriguez said the exhibition is attracting a variety of people to the gallery. "I am seeing many new faces come into the gallery to see these paintings," she said. "I think it's wonderful."
The collection has also caught the attention of Sam Elsabee,
a retired conservator from the Whitney Museum, and Michael Geschlecht,
an antiques dealer, who attended the opening reception last Thursday evening.
Elsabee will become even more familiar with the paintings as he was chosen
to restore more pieces of the collection.
Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday.