“A Legacy of Success: 60 Years of Printmaking at NIU” brings curator Peter Olson full circle. He started his three decades at NIU as a student under the printmaking program co-founder David Dreisbach. So it’s fitting he end his career with the museum with an exhibit celebrating Dreisbach’s legacy and the brilliant artists who followed him in the program. This is also the last show for museum director Jo Burke and assistant Shelby Edelmann. The three learned this summer their jobs had been eliminated.
60 Years of Printmaking was co-curated by NIU’s current head of printmaking, Michael Barnes. He and Olson will hold a curators’ talk about the exhibit September 24th at 6 p.m. at the gallery.
Thanks so much to Peter Olson for his time and talent, as well as everyone with the NIU Art Museum for all the memorable exhibits. Stay tuned to find out what the future holds for the museum: This doesn't mean the art program at NIU is over. In fact, the museum may rely more heavily on students in the future. The following is from a post on the NIU Art Museum's web page:
There will be limited programming associated with the exhibitions, while a committee of campus and community stakeholders, co-chaired by Jessica Labatte, Director of the NIU School of Art and Design and Fred Barnhart, Dean of the University Libraries, help guide a strategic, inclusive planning process for the future of the university’s collections and associated programming. Their efforts will focus on developing ways to showcase the collection more dynamically, incorporating teaching, student research, community partnerships and public programming, while aligning with available resources, and the university’s goals.
NIU remains fully committed to preserving, celebrating and sharing our arts collections for the benefit of students, faculty, alumni and our community.
This episode of Under Rocks was produced by Spencer Tritt, Susan Stephens, and Dan Libman. If you know of something that deserves the Under Rocks treatment, let us know! Tell us about it at rocks@niu.edu.
Under Rocks is produced by WNIJ at Northern Illinois University.
