Segal Gallery Exhibits Rare Works By Master Artists in “Works on Paper Collection” through December 20

Since the early 1960s, Montclair State University (MSU) has been quietly amassing an eclectic collection of fine art, mostly by American artists, with a primary focus on individuals from — or connected to — New Jersey. The first in a series of groundbreaking exhibitions showcasing the university’s varied and extensive holdings, the “Works on Paper Collection” opened on September 18 at the George Segal Gallery, and will be on display through December 20, 2014. The exhibit, curated by Segal Gallery Director M. Teresa Lapid Rodriguez, features prints, drawings, watercolor paintings, and collages selected from more than 2,000 paper pieces, including rarely exhibited works by George Segal (NJ), Alexander Calder (Conn.), Will Barnett (NY), Andy Warhol (Pa.), Andre Masson (France), and Richard Anuszkiewicz (Pa.).

“This exhibit reflects Montclair State University’s long-held institutional commitment to creating, maintaining, and expanding a diverse permanent collection of fine art, for both pedagogical purposes and as a general resource for the community,” said College of the Arts’ Dean Daniel Gurskis. “During its history, the George Segal Gallery has presented an impressive range of exhibitions, global in scope and compelling in subject and theme. It is fitting that the gallery now shifts its attention closer to home by showcasing our own permanent collection that continues to grow in size and stature, and includes influential artists of international renown. We’re delighted to be able to share this collection with our students and the public, and to continue the University’s tradition of making art accessible to everyone.”

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1962 – 1969: Ambitious beginnings of an institutional collection

Beginning in 1962, with the support of Montclair State’s then-president, Dr. Ernest DeAlton Partridge (1951-64) and money from the College Development Fund, MSU’s first Fine Arts’ Department Chair Dr. Lillian Calcia started the institution’s collection with the acquisition of several hundred works on paper, primarily modern and contemporary prints – woodcuts, lithographs, etchings, silkscreens, and serigraphs – by modern and contemporary American artists. From there, the collection grew. The first art exhibition, “Old Masters and the Bible,” opened on October 24, 1962 in the Sprague Library showcasing 15th- to 19th-century European paintings gifted by Dr. and Mrs. Oscar Cosla.

By 1964, what was then Montclair State College was fully committed to expanding its collection and established the Art Acquisition Fund for this purpose, along with making available additional money from other sources (including The War Memorial Fund, The Arden Svenson Northrup Memorial Fund and the Student Government Association). Dr. Calcia and an acquisition committee continued to collect pieces predominantly by American artists, but also attained a smaller number of European and Asian works. The early collection included a Joan Miró lithograph (“Israel”), an Alexander Calder lithograph (“Stabile”), a Marc Chagall etching (“Bible”) a Ben Shahn silkscreen (“The Blind Botanist”), as well as two woodcuts and a lithograph by Italian artist Antonio Frasconi. From the beginning of the acquisition process, a methodical, standard museum-accession and -cataloguing system was created and the collection was documented for posterity.

During these early years, a significant group of 33 oil paintings and two drawings were gifted to Montclair under an agreement signed by N.J. Governor Richard J. Hughes, specifying that they never leave Montclair State. The two drawings in the collection are by 20th-century artist Henry Gasser of West Orange, NJ, which had, until recently, been considered lost for more than 25 years. The works were rediscovered in the university archives this past summer (mislabeled as “unknowns” as the result of frame mats covering the artists’ signatures) and are on display in the “Works on Paper Collection” exhibit.

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1969 – 1994: National socio-political upheaval stalls collection, re-emerges stronger with institutional expansion

After the retirement of Dr. Calcia in 1969, the care and enhancement of the Montclair State College art collection was transferred to a new department and the Main Gallery was established in Life Hall. At this point, however, the nation became embroiled in socio-political upheaval and youth activism arising from a well-known historical chain of events (the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War, and a general clamoring for social justice) that dominated Montclair State and college campuses across the country. Priorities shifted and the mission of acquiring fine arts came to a temporary halt, not to re-emerge again until 1983, when both the institution and the collection found new direction and growth.

Over the next 15 years, Montclair State received a large volume of significant gifts from the local community (including two Alexander Calder tapestries), along with being awarded a 1987 Governor’s Challenge for Excellence in the Arts grant that earned the college a major outdoor sculpture commissioned from British sculpture professor Mac Adams (“Serpent Bearer”). When Montclair State became a university in 1994 (under president Irvin Dexter Reid), the collection entered a period of global expansion that included international exhibitions, and added international art to the collection, including an oil-on-paper painting by Greg Whitecliffe (MSU visiting professor from New Zealand) that is on display in the “Works on Paper Collection” exhibit.

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Exponential 21st Century Growth: Significant Gifts from George and Helen Segal, Andy Warhol Foundations

By the turn of the 21st century, under new president, Dr. Susan Ablon Cole, Montclair State was branded as the fastest-growing university in New Jersey, evidenced by a huge enrollment increase (from 11,000 students in 2000 to nearly 20,000 for 2014-’15) and 16 new academic buildings. This period has likewise been a time of significant growth for the art gallery, which gained a new home in 2006 and was named the George Segal Gallery, honoring sculptor George Segal of South Brunswick, N.J., who passed away in 2000. The timing of the “Works on Paper Collection” exhibit coincides with Segal’s upcoming 90th birthday, which will be marked with a celebration at the gallery, in November.

With the naming of the new gallery, George Segal’s seven-figure white bronze “Street Crossing” (1991) – the artist’s second-most-important assemblage – was donated by the George and Helen Segal Foundation as a token of friendship and installed on campus. This vaulted the Gallery to a new level in the realm of museum work, and drew national recognition of the collection and Montclair State University’s mission. Two years later, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts donated 103 Polaroid and 50 black-and-white photographs to the collection, followed in 2013 by six large Warhol silkscreens from the foundation’s archives. These Warhol pieces will be on public display for the first time ever in the “Works on Paper Collection” exhibit, along with rarely seen etchings and drawings by George Segal, lithographs by Will Barnet and Alexander Calder, and a recently acquired drawing by Ben Wilson.

Rodriguez said she is delighted and gratified by the continued support and recognition that Montclair State University’s collection has received from the community, art world, artists and their foundations. “The selected art in the ‘Works on Paper Collection’ spans years, continents, cultures and perspectives to offer a range of interpretations on the world from diverse artistic aesthetics,” said Rodriguez. “In studying the entirety of the University’s paper collection, I was struck by the many possibilities of expression that art offers to individual artists, and how their portrayals of the world around them are as different as the artists themselves. Each of the works in this exhibit offers a snatch of life – a window into the soul of the artist and the influences that inspired them to make their art.”

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The exhibit is sponsored by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the McMullen Family Foundation.