Art history class gets practice in acquisition

By Brittany Benjamin

It often seems college is an alternate reality, set apart from the real world. But in last quarter's women in the visual arts class, students were able to contribute to the world of art by picking out a piece for the permanent collection in the de Saisset Museum.

The upper division art history class, originally geared at showing how women are underrepresented in the art history field, proved to be a major resource for students in understanding how art buyers and dealers work on a daily basis.

Before the beginning of last quarter, professor Andrea Pappas had prepared the syllabus, keeping with the theme of identifying women within art and women as artists.

That was before she was notified that the de Saisset had received a $5,000 donation in honor of Paula Kirkeby. Kirkeby is the director of Palo Alto's Smith Anderson Editions studio, which specializes in fine art devoted to the monotype print. The donation was made for an acquisition project, enabling the museum to buy works by a living woman artist.

"I rearranged my syllabus at the last minute," said Pappas about reconfiguring her class around the new donation.

With the assistance of Karen Kienzle, assistant director for exhibitions, education and community outreach at the de Saisset, Pappas created a list of 48 potential art objects the museum could buy.

The mission for her students, she said, was to go out and research these objects and decide which ones they wanted to buy. She divided her students up into small groups, each group working on a different set of objects. At the end of the quarter, each person wrote a paper on his or her assigned artist. Additionally, each group gave a 20-minute presentation petitioning the class for their work to be bought.

At the end of the presentations, the class voted on the works they wanted to buy.

"It was a difficult voting process because all of us became biased," said junior Lizzie Carter, a student in the class, about the artist she studied.

Carter, along with her group, was assigned Squeak Carnwath as her artist of study. Carnwath ended up as one of four artists whose work was chosen for purchase by the class. Carter said that researching Carnwath was difficult at times because there were limited resources pertaining to the contemporary artist.

The winning works include Hung Liu's "Olympia," Juane Quick-to-see Smith's "An American Breakthrough," Squeak Carnwath's "Object Lesson," and Sue Coe's "La Frontera." All works are prints by women artists.

The works have arrived in the de Saisset, but have not yet been put on display. All of them will remain in the museum's permanent collection.

"It's really exciting to play with real money," Carter said. "We have tangible evidence for what we've accomplished."

Junior Ashley Batz and her group were assigned Hung Liu, whose "Olympia" was ultimately chosen as the primary work to be purchased. After a discount, the total cost for the piece was $3,897.

"It made me feel like my voice was actually heard," Batz said.

While researching their own artist, students also learned about women in art through the classroom. They learned that women have traditionally been discriminated against in the art history field, but contemporary art historians have started to focus on them.

This acquisition project was the fourth of its kind at Santa Clara. The first three "Acquisitions for Diversity" were funded by donations coming from the Center for Multicultural Learning. Under former professor Bridget Cooks, the African American women in the visual arts and African Americans and photography courses acquired eight photographs and one photolithograph for the de Saisset.

Recently, professor Kate Morris' Native American art: special topics course focused on native Californian artists. This resulted in the museum acquiring three photographs, one serigraph, a painting and a lithograph.

"If I can find another funding source, I would love to do it again," said Kienzle.

She said the acquisition projects benefit the campus in three ways. First, the museum is allowed to keep the chosen works in its permanent collection. She said it also benefits students because they can take an active role in the acquisition process. Lastly, teachers have a larger body of work to study in future classes.

"It really benefits everyone," Kienzle said.

Contact Brittany Benjamin at (408) 551-1918 or brbenjamin@scu.edu.