home magazine - the art of brenau

July | August 2014

The Art of Brenau University collection includes

pieces by modern masters

16 HOME Living In North GeorgiaJuly | August 2014

an

homemagazinenorthgeorgia.com 17July | August 2014

amazingacquisitionanBrenau University’s art collection is

a cultural wellspring in North Georgia

A Brenau University gallery worker carefully unpacks artwork to hang in one the campus galleries. Opposite page: An oil painting of a figure by Giuseppe Napoli donated by avid art collectors Dorothy and the late Hubert Vogel.

Story by Savannah KingPhotos courtesy Brenau University

T18 HOME Living In North GeorgiaJuly | August 2014

The sounds of rush-hour traffic can be heard from inside The Manhattan Gallery.

The constant swoosh of passing cars creates an appropriate ambiance for the metropolitan-inspired art exhibit. The mood is occasionally punctuated by the honk of a pass-ing chicken truck.

Though the Big Apple and Brenau Uni-versity in Gainesville may be more than 800 miles apart, the two are linked by a network of personal connections to the art world.

Works by world-renowned artists Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschen-berg hang on the gallery’s walls, represent-ing the New York City art scene in the small private university in Northeast Georgia.

When John S. Burd arrived on campus as Brenau’s president nearly 30 years ago, he felt the students needed more fine art displayed

around the school. At the time, the college had only a few pieces on campus.

“When I came here we had no art at all,” said Burd, now president emeritus. “So I put an ad in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal saying that an elite women’s college in the South wished to develop an art collection, and if people were interested to please call.”

The ads led to a few donations from art collectors and artists. Burd continued reaching out to the art community at-large.

Not long after he began his search, Burd learned the school had a connection to Johns, one of America’s most valuable artists. Johns was born in Augusta in 1930 and raised along-side his aunts, who were Brenau alumnae, by his grandmother in South Carolina.

So Burd called Johns, a well-known pop

and abstract expressionist in New York with a reputation for being aloof. Burd attempted to reach Johns several times to see if he would be interested in donating a piece to the univer-sity’s budding collection in honor of his aunts.

“I knew he knew about this place and so I called him and finally after three calls he told his secretary that ‘He didn’t do that kind of thing,’” Burd said, smiling.

Instead, his secretary told Burd to contact Johns’ agent.

“His agent was Leo Castelli, who was the father of pop art,” Burd said. “He was the one who gave Johns notoriety and Rauschenberg and (Roy) Lichtenstein and Warhol and sev-eral others. So he agreed to see me and I went up to New York to see him about helping us do this.”

When Burd told the school’s art depart-

An undated photo of Hubert and Dorothy Vogel with some of the many pieces of modern art collected by the

New York couple over many years. Opposite page: Water color by Hank

Virgona are part of the permanent collection at Brenau University.


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ment faculty of his plans, they quickly brought him up to speed on Castelli’s work and importance in the art world.

“I do look back now and think ‘You know, you should have been a little bit embarrassed,’” Burd said, laughing. “But I wasn’t embarrassed at all be-cause I wanted him to help this institution with art. So we met several times and he said he didn’t have money but he did have art connections.”

Castelli, who died in 1999, must have admired Burd’s gump-tion because he accepted an offer to serve on the Brenau Board of Trustees.

Burd said Castelli took his role as board member seriously. His presence provided the small school with an opportunity to build a solid reputation and fine art collection.

A portrait of Castelli, painted by Georgia artist Steve Penley, hangs outside of the Leo Castelli Art Gallery in the university’s John S. Burd Center for the Performing Arts building on the main campus.

By the time Burd retired from his post as president in 2004, the school had a collection of more than 1,200 pieces, some of which bore the names of artists like Renoir and Lichtenstein. Today, the collection includes more than 6,500 pieces of fine art and continues to grow, much of it displayed in galleries around campus.

“That’s what it was meant to do,” Burd said. “I can’t tell you honestly that I dreamed the world would one day say ‘Let’s see what Brenau is doing.’ That was never it. But I wanted students to participate in having art around them and in a liberal arts institu-tion I thought that was valuable to have. That’s what drove me to do it.”

The school’s newest permanent art collection is located inside the Brenau Downtown Center in Gainesville.

The new gallery is anchored by a donation of art by another connection to the New York art scene of the last century. More

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The new gallery is anchored by a donation of art by another connection to the New York art scene of the last century. More than 100 works donated by well-known New York art collectors Dorothy Vogel and her late husband Herbert were donated to the university. More than 80 of the pieces are on permanent display in the Manhattan Gallery.

The Vogels began collecting art soon after they were married in 1962 and, over the years, collected more than 5,000 pieces.

“They were basically civil servants,” said Melissa Morgan, former gallery director. “He was a postman and she was a librarian. They lived in rent-controlled housing and basically took his salary and bought art and she support-ed him. She’s very open about saying that. … They amassed a tremendous amount of art.”

The couple provided artwork for a featured exhibition of female artists at the school in 1996 and continued the relationship with the university over the years. Earlier this year, the university received an additional 26 pieces from the collection through the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., custodian of the entire Vogel collection. The additional pieces included a piece by Giuseppe Napoli, an abstract expres-sionist, and several others by Herbert Vogel himself.

As Morgan walked down the gallery corridor that holds the Vogel collection, she remarked on what it must have been like for the couple to fill such an active role in preserving art of the last several decades.

Above: An undated photo of Hubert and

Dorothy Vogel with some of the many pieces of modern

art collected by the New York couple over

many years. Right: A 1955 oil painting,

“Still Life with Black Bottle,” by Giuseppe

Napoli is part of Brenau’s permanent

collection. Opposite page: Water

colors by Hank Virgona are part of the permanent collection at Brenau University.


“What makes them so incred-ible is they lived the life of New York in the ’60s and ’70s,” Morgan said.

Imagining the art scene during that time isn’t difficult to do inside the Manhattan Gallery. An adjacent hallway in the gallery also provides visitors with a glimpse into the iconic era of art history with a series of photos taken by Warhol, a prolific pop artist.

The photos are a part of the Pho-tographic Legacy program begun in 1997 by the Andy Warhol Founda-tion. Brenau received 155 photo-graphs from the foundation through the program featuring iconic per-sonalities like Truman Capote, Lillian Carter and Valentino. The photos were often used by Warhol as references for his many silkscreen portraits. In 2013, the foundation provided Brenau with an additional seven screen prints to go along with the collection of photographs.

More contemporary works cre-ated by artists like Margaret Evan-geline, Hunt Slonem, Kiki Smith and Sarah Lamb, a graduate of the university, also are featured.

In keeping with the school’s history, many pieces were created by female artists.

“It’s always wonderful to add women artists to the collection be-cause of the school being a women’s college,” Burd said. “We’ve had some very good contemporary artists, Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Nevel-son and Kiki Smith. Those are just some … They’re all big names in the art world.”

The idea behind the gallery is to represent the modern periods of American art history through the gallery.

“New York basically became the center of the art scene after World War II, mostly because Paris was dealing with issues like getting bombed,” Morgan said. “So New York, after the war, became the cen-ter of the art scene and a lot of the artists flew Europe and came here.

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“It’s always won-derful to add wom-en artists to the collection because of the school being a women’s college. We’ve had some very good contem-porary artists, Hel-en Frankenthaler, Louise Nevelson and Kiki Smith.Those are just some …”


SSo what we set up here was having those artists from the decades after World War II, so each of the decades of art history is repre-sented.”

Morgan said the campus and its galleries are set up to be a “living museum.” Many pieces are displayed along halls where classes are held, giving students daily exposure to fine art.

“That’s what a museum art gallery really does,” Morgan said. “It gives you that relation-ship. That one-on-one to a work that you can’t get on a computer screen. You can look at the Mona Lisa all you want to but unless you’re standing in front of her it’s a whole other con-cept. … Educationally, I hope our students are walking by and saying ‘Wow, that’s different.’”

The collection continues to grow. In addi-tion to showcasing student and local artists at exhibitions throughout the year, the college is adding to its collection through donations and providing both students and the public with opportunities to learn about art through the ages.

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Brenau gallery workers unpack works to hang in one of the many galleries on the university’s campus.

Dorothy Vogel, sitting, gets a look at some the donated

artwork on display during the Brenau University 135th

anniversary gala.



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SSeveral large glass collages by Los Angeles-based-artist Marnie Weber lean against the walls inside of the Brenau Trustee Library wait-ing to be hung. A box of 2,000-year-old Egyptian and Roman oil lamps and coins are waiting to be unpacked inside the rare books col-lection in the library.

“When (people) find out what’s in the collection, they have a much greater respect for this in-stitution,” Burd said. “When things are credible, it does then to build on itself. Especially when people are (donating), knowing they’re doing it for people learn more about art. It will be generations after generations that will have this opportunity. I think that makes a big impact on a lot of donors.

“I think it would be great if it was an institution in this area that could not only talk about the periods of art, but to also have ex-amples of it, that would be unusual. A lot of people would have to do it with digital photos or books or whatever, but these students are able to see it firsthand and I think that makes an impact on them when they want to do something for themselves.”

“You can look at the Mona Lisa all you want to but un-less you’re standing in front of her it’s a whole other con-cept. … I hope our students are walk-ing by and saying ‘Wow, that’s differ-ent.’”


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This 1955 landscape in oil by Giuseppe Napoli is part of the permanent collection at Brenau University.

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