This blog post was created by Maeve Doyle, Ph.D. Candidate, History of Art, Bryn Mawr College
This past Tuesday was no ordinary workday in Bryn Mawr College Special Collections. By 10 in the morning, our seminar room in Canaday Library was overflowing with boxes and large bins containing the first shipment of the Jacqueline and Howard Levine Collection. If you’re walking past Canaday 205, be sure to stop and enjoy the sight of us squeezing through wall-to-wall crates of art!
Hyoungee dives in
This new wealth of works on paper is due to the generous gift of Jacqueline and Howard Levine. Jacqueline Koldin Levine, class of 1946, has long been an active member of the Bryn Mawr community, serving on the Board of Trustees from 1979 to 1991. The Levines’ art collection focuses mainly on prints and contains a wide range of examples of European modernism as well as a particular emphasis on American Social Realist movements, such as the Ashcan School. We are tremendously grateful to Jackie and Howard Levine; their donation of this superlative collection will allow Bryn Mawr students to discover, study, and enjoy its works for generations.
Howard Levine & Brian Wallace, Curator and Academic Liaison for Art and Artifacts, in the Levines’ home gallery, before the collection’s move
Before that can happen, however, we need to integrate these new pieces into our existing collections. That’s down to Hyoungee Kong and me: two students , twenty-two boxes and bins, and 482 works of art (so far!). Our first step is to assign a Bryn Mawr accession number to each object and to make a concordance between the Levine catalogue numbers and the new identifiers. Next we’ll be moving the works out of their temporary boxes and bins and into the archival folders and boxes that will be their permanent homes. While we do this, our eyes will be peeled for the best exemplars of the Levine Collection, which we’ll showcase in an exhibit next year. Our last step will be to catalogue each new addition and to make images and information about the artworks available on the Tri-College TriArte Art and Artifacts Database. We’ve been working closely with Marianne Weldon, Collections Manager, Art and Artifact Collections in Special Collection to complete this mammoth task.
Maeve starts the inventory for a new box; you never know what you’ll find!
As we pull works one by one from their boxes, we’ve come face-to-face with the works of master printmakers of the 20th century and earlier. From the artistic avant-garde of Pablo Picasso or George Grosz to the social commentary of Käthe Kollwitz or the Social Realist artists of the 1920s and 30s, the images are startling, challenging, touching, and beautiful. This is a collection with emotional as well as artistic range. Here is just a taste of what’s to be discovered in the Levine Collection …
Francisco de Goya, Tanto y Mas, 1810, 2012.27.241
Pablo Picasso, Nude (constructed title), 2012.27.457
Moshe Gat, Old Man in a Doorway (constructed title), 2012.27.432
An exciting bonanza! Eagerly awaiting an exhibit.
It is a wonderful collection!! Please advise us when the opening will be as we would love to be there.
Congratulation to you both on donating the collection to Bryn Mawr.
Jacqueline and Howard Levine have provided a really significant enhancement to the wonderful fine arts education offered by the College. Tributes to them. I look forward to viewing the collection when I visit the College.
Dear Roslyn,
All of us in Special Collections are thrilled to be working with the Levine’s donation; we’re going to celebrate the opening of the exhibition with the Levines on Thursday, September 13th; more information will be posted on this blog by the end of this week. Do, please, contact me in the meantime if you wish at bwallace@brynmawr.edu.
Best,
Brian Wallace, curator and academic liaison for art and artifacts
Dear Eunice and Solomon Kaplan,
My colleagues and I are also very much looking forward to celebrating the Levines’ support of research and the arts here at Bryn Mawr. We will post details on this blog about special events by the end of the week; in the meantime, I am happy to let you know that we will be hosting a reception and talk on Thursday, September 13th — with more details to come.
Do contact me in the meantime with any questions.
Yours,
Brian Wallace, curator and academic liaison for art and artifacts
bwallace@brynmawr.edu
Dear Mazel Linowitz,
I’m pleased that you, like my colleagues in Special Collections, are so excited about this important and generous gift. We’ll publish details by the end of the week, but I can tell you now that we will celebrate the opening of an exhibition of selected works from the collection at a reception on Thursday, September 13th.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance, and thank you for your interest.
Best,
Brian Wallace, curator and academic liaison for art and artifacts
bwallace@brynmawr.edu
Pingback: Extraordinary Gift by Jacqueline Koldin Levine ’46 and Howard Levine Reinvigorates Bryn Mawr’s Art Collection | Bryn Mawr Now
I find this very exciting and wonderful news that the Levines have donated their valuable and most interesting collection tothe College. An invaluable addition to Bryn Mawr’s art collection
Greetings and thank you for your thoughts. We here in Special Collections remain profoundly energized (read: “very busy”) in light of the scope of the gift from the Levines — who continue to be the most gracious people imaginable. If a visit to the exhibition before October 14 is possible, do not hesitate to contact bwallace@brynmawr.edu. Indeed, the three exhibition curators will give a gallery talk on the afternoon of October 11 and we would be delighted to see you then.
Brian Wallace, Curator and Academic Liaison for Art and Artifacts