Exhibits at the Libraries

(Main Lobby Area, Mullins Library)

University of Arkansas drama professor Michael J. Riha struggles with the idea of being labeled an "artist." He says, "I hold the word 'artist' in such high regard that I find it difficult to place myself in that category." He prefers to think of himself as a "theatre designer," who takes the role of the student in the development of his artistic abilities.

"Works by Michael J. Riha," currently on display at Mullins Library, offers a tantalizing glimpse into the development of Riha's abilities in three forms. The exhibit contains still-life works that were created while Riha studied with a Russian set designer – Danila Korogodski, who, Riha says, "impressed upon me the importance of 'seeing, not inventing, what it is that you see before you.'"

Also displayed is a series of watercolors, a quiet celebration of Gulley Park trees before last winter's ice storm forever altered their shapes. Riha says he was inspired by a late December afternoon walk in Gulley Park with his wife. He says, "It was around dusk and as I looked up into the sky from underneath the trees, I was struck by the beauty of the colorful, vibrant setting sun against the barren, lifeless branches of the trees."

Riha says he chose the perspective, "almost that of a squirrel looking up the trunk of the tree," to make "the impact of the tree's canopy even more dramatic." Riha made a series of the tree images to "explore the depth and richness of the black silhouette against the dramatically colored and mottled sky."

The last set of images in the exhibit are sample set design renderings that Riha creates "as a means of communicating my ideas for the world of the play." The appearances of these pieces in an art exhibit is, says Riha, "unique in that they are used as a tool as opposed to the final outcome and are therefore rarely seen as 'art pieces.'" The striking stage renderings on their flat black backgrounds are, however, like the squirrel's perspective of a Gulley Park tree, an absorbing glimpse into a world most of us will only see from a more common, spectator's point of view.

Michael J. Riha, a native of Wisconsin, holds a bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin and a Master of Fine Arts in Scenic Design/Technical Direction from Indiana University. He is currently a Professor of Dramatic Arts at the University of Arkansas.

"Works by Michael Riha" will be displayed through the end of December, 2009. For more information, call the dean's office, at (479) 575-6702.

An exhibit commemorating the 25th anniversary of the University of Arkansas Press is on display in Special Collections.

The Press publishes approximately 20 titles a year, about a third of which fall under the general heading of Arkansas and Regional Studies.

The Libraries at the University of Arkansas have been a Federal Depository Library Program participant for United States documents since 1907. As part of its 100th anniversary commemoration as a participant, the Libraries assembled and digitized a small collection of government documents for this online exhibit. The items on display represent a wide variety of material that will be of historic and artistic value; but they will also satisfy a popular curiosity and an aesthetic sensibility. Visit the exhibit.

Dario Viterbo was born in Florence, Italy, in 1890. He was a student of Augusto Rivalta in Florence and had exhibited his work there and in Rome before holding a one-man show in Milan in 1922. Viterbo won prizes for work exhibited at the International Decorative Arts Show in Paris in 1925. He then moved to Paris and became a French citizen. He came to New York as a war refugee from Paris in 1941. His sculptures were shown in New York at the Wildenstein Galleries in 1944. He maintained studios and homes in both New York and Florence until his death in 1961. Other bronzes by Viterbo are owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library.

This sculpture, “The Enchantment,” was created by Viterbo in 1942 and was shown in New York at the Sculptors Guild Annual Show in the Argent Galleries in 1950. Images of the sculpture from that show appeared in The New York Times and The Art Digest, where it was described as making “cleaner use of bronze to express simple convex and concave sculptural volumes” (Art Digest, April 1, 1950: page 9). “The Enchantment” was purchased by Marie Wilson Howells and donated to the University of Arkansas in 1956.

Marie Wilson Howells was an Arkansas philanthropist from the celebrated family in east Arkansas for whom the town of Wilson is named. Ms. Howells, who lived in New York for many years, was proud of her Arkansas heritage and made many generous gifts to her home state. She had a deep interest in the intricacies of the human mind as well as a profound concern for higher education. In 1979 she endowed a trust at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, establishing chairs in psychiatry and psychology there.

"Rebirth"

(Located on landing of East Staircase, Mullins Library)

Anita Huffington presented to the University of Arkansas Libraries this alabaster sculpture. According to an inscription on the pedestal, the piece was given in memory of her daughter Lisa Huffington Duque, formerly a student at the University, "with special thanks to Dean Bernard Madison" of Fulbright College "for his vision and fruitful efforts to bring art to the University of Arkansas."

Rebirth depicts a young woman in a curled fetal position. Huffington wrote that she saw it as "a metaphor for change and growth . . . a continuum of all that has been passed on to us from countless lives past and present." She finished the work on June 30, 1982, and on July 31, her daughter Lisa was killed by a drunk driver. The sculpture is mounted on a simple pedestal on a landing of the sprial staircase in the east entrance foyer of Mullins Library. Light from the large windows on the east side filters through the white alabaster, which is luminous in daylight, in accord with Huffington's wish that the piece be displayed in a quiet place near a window.

Although Huffington has settled in the Arkansas woods outside of Winslow, she is well known in national art circles. A native of Baltimore, she attended the University of North Carollina and soon went to New York City, intending to become a dancer. She did in fact study dance with Martha Graham and others and threw herself into the intellectual and artistic life of the late fifties and sixties. She abandoned her ambitions as a dancer, however, and returned to college, eventually earning her M.F.A. degree. She began working in stone and found that "it was the key" that seemed to unlock her creative energies.

Huffington's work is exhibited in galleries in New York, Houston, Dallas, and other cities. Her sandstone torsos were shown at the "Armory Show" in New York, an art event of international importance. In 1997 she received the Jimmy Ernst Award of the American Academy of Arts & Letters, a "lifetime achievement" award given to a painter or sculptor whose lifetime contribution has been consistent and dedicated.

Rebirth is the second Huffington sculpture to find a home on the University of Arkansas campus. In 1998 a bronze torso entitled Spring was purchased and is on permanent exhibition in the Bogle Hall in Old Main, headquarters of Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences.

A permanent exhibit of art works by Stephen Chism, a librarian and Library faculty member, is located on the south end of the west lobby in Mullins Library.

Stephen Chism began showing artwork in 1985 as a participant in the Bluefield Gallery Exhibition and has exhibited work regularly in northwest Arkansas since that time. His one-person shows include exhibits at the University Fine Arts Gallery (1991), the Fayetteville Public Library (1992), the "I" Gallery at 111 West Lafayette Street (1992), the Walton Arts Center (1993 and 1995), and the Anne Kittrell Gallery (1994).

Honors include a 1995 artist's grant funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andy Warhol Foundation, and participation in the Illuminance Exhibit at the Lubbock Fine Arts Center in 1996.

Chism works primarily with photo-generated images which are hand-colored and manipulatd to achieve a variety of effects. Reviews of his work have appeared in Grapevine and Invision Magazine.

Some of these works are available for purchase. If interested, please leave a message with the artist at 575-8420.

The bronze bust of Dr. David W. Mullins, the University’s 14th president, was unveiled at a ceremony officially marking the change of the name of the University Library to the David W. Mullins Library on November 21, 1975. The name was changed by action of the Board of Trustess after Mulllins’ retirement as president of the university (1960-1974). The life-size bust was sculpted in the lost wax process by Subrata Lahiri, assistant professor of art.

“Sentascape#1”

(Located in hallway near the Walton Reading Room of Mullins Library)

“Sentascape #2”

(Located in the Public Services area near Reference Collection in Mullins Library)

These two sculptures were donated to the Libraries by Myron Brody in honor of his wife, Senta Brody. “Sentascape #1” is composed of American red granite. “Sentascape #2 is composed of Arkansas limestone and Brazilian black granite.

Myron Brody is an emeritus professor of Art at the University of Arkansas. He has exhibited his photography and his sculpture and other 3D design at museums and universities all over the country, as well as internationally in Europe. He has also contributed to the permanent collections of a number of museums and corporations, including the Museum Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro; the William C. Seitz Memorial Collection at Princeton University; the AVX Corporation at World Headquarters in Great Neck, New York; the Prudential Insurance Company of America in Newark, New Jersey; and Sumitomo Industries Limited in Tokyo, Japan.

“Someone Knocking” (Level Three West of Mullins Library)
“Medal of Honor” (Fine Arts Library)

Raised on a small farm outside of Paris, Arkansas, George Dombek received his bachelor’s degree in architecture (1974) and a Master’s of Fine Arts in Painting (1975) from the University of Arkansas. Dombek went on to teach architecture and art at universities in Arkansas, Ohio, Florida, Saudi Arabia, and Italy. Dombek donated two paintings to the University of Arkansas Libraries. He donated “Someone’s Knocking,” a painting from his Crates series, his master’s thesis project, in 1977, and “Medal of Honor,” a watercolor from his Ozark Portrait series, in 2008.

Dombek said, “While going to school at the U of A, few days went by that I didn’t spend some time in the Fine Arts Library. The library played an important part in my education; as important as the classes or aspects of my career as a student. It is fortunate that the University has a separate library that contains fine art.”

Over a forty-year period Dombek has generated an impressive catalog of work. Predominantly working in watercolor, he refers to his distinctive style as “abstract realism.” His works appear in over 800 museum, corporate, and private collections and have been exhibited in more than 150 solo and group shows, including shows at the Arkansas Arts Center, the Butler Institute of American Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Birmingham Museum of Art, and the Oakland Museum.

His more than eighty awards include: recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Arkansas Arts Council, Florida Arts Fellowships from the Florida Arts Council, and most recently, a New York Studio Residency from the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation, and a Pollack-Krasner Award. For more information, visit www.georgedombek.com.