Radford University’s display “ARTGAWK: Choice Pickings from the Radford University Permanent Collection” on campus at the Art Museum at the Covington Center continues through April 17. Admission is free.
In addition to Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, ARTGAWK will include works from renowned artists such as Honoré Daumier, Adolf Dehn, Urmila Devi, Jim Dine, Gustave Doré, Audrey Flack, Dorothy Gillespie, Guadalupe González Ríos, Francisco Goya, Jasper Johns, Käthe Kollwitz, Elaine de Kooning, Harold Little, Dinh Luc, Aristide Maillol, Joan Miró, Robert Motherwell, Robert Rauschenberg, Georges Rouault, Frank Stella, Alison Weld and James Abbott McNeil Whistler.
“Radford University has a noteworthy art collection that deserves to be seen and enjoyed by the wider community,” said Radford University Art Museum director Steve Arbury. “I am pleased the Radford University Art Museum can offer this aesthetic and educational experience, especially during these trying times.”
The late Dorothy Gillespie, an acclaimed artist from Roanoke who served Radford University as a distinguished professor of art, founded the art museum’s permanent collection.
During her time at the university, Gillespie acquired select pieces of art that she believed would be important for preservation. Since that time, numerous artworks have been added to the collection.
The newest acquisitions include a collection of 23 Mithila artworks from India, donated by The Ethnic Arts Foundation in August of 2020. A painting by Urmila Devi from that collection will be on display during ARTGAWK. Two joint exhibitions focusing on Mithila art and mythology are being planned for the fall of 2022.
Guest curator John H. Bowles worked with Arbury to assemble the ARTGAWK exhibition. “It [was] a joy,” he said, “going through the museum’s collection of some 2,200 art objects to select works for this exhibition.”
Margaret Devaney, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, sid about the display that given the difficulties of isolation over the past several months from adhering to safety precautions amid the COVID-19 global health pandemic, the art museum is “thrilled to be able to offer an art exhibition for both our campus and surrounding community where we can gather safely and enjoy world-class artwork from our permanent collection.”
Museum hours for the exhibition are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. through April 17.
