EAST LANSING, MI.- The MSU Department of Art and Art History Biennial Studio Art Faculty Exhibition coincides with The Department of Art & Art History’s celebration of its 75th anniversary. An opening reception, hosted by Friends of Kresge Art Museum, will be held Friday, November 10 from 7:00-9:00 p.m. at Kresge Art Museum . The artists will be present to discuss their work.

The exhibition includes 21 studio artists who teach and create art. Among them are new faculty members Benjamin Duke, Teresa Dunn, Kimberly Greene, Michael Hersrud, Robert McCann, Kelly Salchow and Susanna Van Horn. With so many new hires this past year, the exhibition will be an exciting place to be introduced to their work. The exhibition is sponsored by Michigan State University Federal Credit Union.

For the 75th anniversary, the department is preparing a documentary display that will be installed in the newly refurbished and expanded art department galleries on the first floor of the Kresge Art Center . Additionally, many visiting artists, lectures by art history faculty, and other events will be scheduled throughout the year.

Short gallery talks by artist will also be given by Kimberly Greene and Robert McCann on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at 3:30 p.m., and by Ben Duke, Teresa Dunn, and Susannah Van Horn on Thursday, November 16, 2006 at 1:00 p.m.

In conjunction with the Studio Art Faculty Biennial Exhibition and the 75th anniversary of the Department of Art and Art History, Kresge Art Museum presents The First 50 Years: MSU Faculty Artists in the Kresge Art Museum Collection, featuring work in the collection by faculty members who taught in the first fifty years. The faculty’s art making represented trends seen throughout the art world from the 1920s through 1970s; landscapes and figurative styles were eventually replaced by experimentation and abstraction. This exhibition features 12 artists who worked in a range of mediums from drawing, painting and printmaking to ceramics and sculpture.

Among the works on view are examples by the department’s first head, Arnold Scheele, who painted nature in a post-impressionist style; early work by Charles Pollock and John DeMartelly in a regionalist style influenced by Thomas Hart Benton as well as later abstract pieces from the 1960s; and additional pieces by James McConnell, Alma Goetsch, Kathrine Winckler, Abraham Rattner, and Howard Church.