Displaying items by tag: jim hodges

Today the North Carolina Museum of Art unveiled a new vision plan for its 164-acre campus. The phased, long-term plan calls for a new campus entrance and streetscape, increased parking capacity, woodland and meadow restoration, additional Park trails and infrastructure, improved sustainability measures, and additional outdoor works of art.

The Museum enlisted landscape architecture and urban design firm Civitas, Inc., of Denver, Colorado, to develop the plan and commissioned internationally renowned artist Jim Hodges to create a signature work of art from the existing smokestack on campus. The Museum’s director of planning and design, Dan Gottlieb, is leading the project.

A measure of respect is due any artist who has the nerve to take on a revered masterpiece in the history of art, aspiring to remake it according to a conception of new conditions in the present. That's what Jim Hodges did in 2008 with a sculpture born of Albrecht Dürer's famous watercolor that shows a chunk of wet mud sprouting a clump of bristling weeds.

Arguably, Dürer's "The Great Piece of Turf" (1503) is the greatest drawing in all of Western art. Hodges' take on it, a delicate glass sculpture sealed inside a nearly 3-foot-tall bell jar, is one of 56 works in the 25-year retrospective of his career concluding its national tour at the UCLA Hammer Museum. "Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take," jointly organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and Minneapolis' Walker Art Center, continues through Jan. 18.

The Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire, announced that it has received a significant gift from the estate of May Gruber, a legendary New Hampshire businesswoman and civic leader. Included in the donation are works by Rembrandt, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Pierre Bonnard, James McNeill Whistler, David Hockney, and Jim Hodges. many of the works are currently on view in the museum’s European, Modern, and Contemporary art galleries.

Gruber, the former head of Pandora Industries, a Manchester institution that created iconic sweaters and knitwear in the city from 1940 until 1983, helped found Child Health Services and the Manchester Community Music School. Gruber and her first husband, Saul Sidore, began collecting art in the 1960s based on advice from Charles Buckley, then director of the Currier.

Susan Strickler, the director and CEO of the Currier, said, “May Gruber felt strongly about giving back to the community that helped her company to grow. Her tastes were eclectic and wide-ranging, as is evidenced by the works she gave to the Currier. Because of her bequest, the region has an even more exceptional collection of art to cherish.”

Founded in 1929, the Currier Museum of Art’s collection includes European and American paintings, decorative arts, photographs, and sculpture.