RICHMOND, VA.- The University of Richmond Museums presents the First Decade Celebration: Tenth Anniversary of the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center, on view from October 28 to December 9, 2011, in the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art. The Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center was inaugurated in September 2001 through generous funding from Joel (RC’45) and Lila Harnett of Phoenix, Arizona. The museum houses the permanent collection of prints, drawings, and photographs of the University Museums and includes an exhibition space, a secure print storage area, a seminar room, and a viewing area for works on paper being researched by students, faculty, and visiting scholars.

The exhibition celebrates the Harnett Print Study Center during its first decade by featuring exceptional works from its outstanding collection, from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century. It highlights ten artists that are represented in depth in the collection: Margaret May Dashiell (American, 1869-1958), Pierre Daura (American, born Spain, 1896-1976), Stefano della Bella (Italian, 1610-1664), Andreas Feininger (American, born France, 1906-1999), Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828), Hans Friedrich Grohs (German, 1892-1981), Julius J. Lankes (American, 1884-1960), Reginald Marsh (American, born France, 1898-1954), Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987), and Jean-Antoine Watteau (French, 1684-1721).

In addition, it presents works from the I. Webb Surratt Jr. Print Collection, from prints by Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528), to Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997), to Robert Motherwell (American, 1915-1991); includes a selection of recent contemporary works from the Center Street Studio Archives being acquired by the museum, ranging from works by Nell Blaine (American, 1922-1992), to John Walker (American, born England 1939), to John Wilson (American, born 1922); and features selected gifts and acquisitions of prints, drawings, and photographs by artists such as John Taylor Arms (American, 1887-1953), Philip Evergood (American, 1901-1973), Käthe Kollwitz (German, 1867-1945), Jean-Émile Laboureur (French, 1877-1943), Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919), and James Abbott McNeill Whistler (American, 1834-1903), to name just a few.

As part of the celebration of the Harnett Center’s tenth anniversary, the University of Richmond Museums is presenting three related exhibitions of works on paper from the permanent collection of the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center:

• Idea to Image: Process, States, and Proofs from the Collection
Through April 1, 2012, Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art

• Avel de Knight: Drawings for Army Life in a Black Regiment
Through April 4, 2012, Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center

• Start to Finish: The Seven Stages of “Apex” by Gerry Bergstein
Through July 1, 2012, Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art

Joel Harnett (1926-2006), a University of Richmond graduate (RC ’45), was a former vice president of Look magazine and founder of Media Horizons, a public radio broadcasting and magazine company. Harnett served on the board and executive committee of the Heard Museum in Phoenix. Lila Harnett is one of the founders of ArtTable, a national organization of professional women leaders in the visual arts, a former critic with CUE magazine, a member of the New York State Council on the Arts for eight years, and is currently serving on the board of the Phoenix Art Museum.

In 2001 the Harnetts gave a major contribution to establish the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center and an endowment for print acquisitions and programs. They have also given significant artwork to the museum’s permanent collection and funding for the Harnett Summer Research Fellow, which allows a University of Richmond undergraduate to work full time with museum staff to research the collections and curate exhibitions.

The Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center has brought a decade of outstanding art to the University of Richmond’s students, faculty, and staff and to the greater Richmond community and beyond. The museum has shown work by national and international artists from old master prints from the Italian Renaissance to modern American folk art to contemporary mixed-media work. Several of the exhibitions organized by the museum have circulated throughout Virginia and traveled nationally. For the past ten years, the museum has endeavored to present compelling and captivating exhibitions and programs that not only engage visitors but inspire them as well.

With approximately 1,200 square feet of space, the Harnett Print Study Center houses the permanent collection of prints, drawings, and photographs of the University Museums and includes an exhibition space, a secure print storage area, a seminar room for University courses, and a viewing area for prints being researched by students, faculty, and visiting scholars. The Harnett Center features changing exhibitions each school year, in addition to lectures, openings, gallery talks, workshops, concerts, symposia, and other programs. The Harnett Center extends the University Museums’ mission to be a forum for the visual arts and a catalyst for widely varied issues of visual expression, art research, and scholarship within the University, throughout the greater Richmond community and region, and nationally and internationally.

Organized by the University of Richmond Museums the exhibition was curated by Richard Waller, Executive Director, University Museums, with Jacqueline Clary, ’12, art history major, University of Richmond, and 2011 Harnett Summer Research Fellow, University Museums.