{"id":47652,"date":"2017-05-31T09:00:48","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T16:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=47652"},"modified":"2017-05-30T14:27:18","modified_gmt":"2017-05-30T21:27:18","slug":"then-and-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/then-and-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Artists past and present appear in NAU Art Museum’s summer exhibit"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the years following graduate school, Brian Painter<\/strong> found himself living a nomadic lifestyle, moving from university town to university town. He felt like he was constantly packing and unpacking, moving from Tucson to Madison, Wisconsin, before coming to Northern Arizona University.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe university life is a transient life,\u201d he said. \u201cYou want to set down roots, but you can\u2019t really. You have to drag all your possessions around.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was all in his head as he began work. Painter is a professor of sculpture in the College of Arts & Letters who created the piece \u201cPortrait of the Artist as a Young Dog.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his sculpture, which is now part of the permanent collection at the NAU Art Museum, a pug sits atop roots stretching downward. The cast-bronze canine is hauling a cart full of belongings.<\/p>\n

If the James Joyceian title didn\u2019t give it away, the dog represents Painter\u2014and every college student or professor who\u2019s lived the transient university life, holding onto their little treasures as they move from place to place in their lives.<\/p>\n

Painter\u2019s pug is one of many works of art that are part of \u201cThen and Now: The Permanent Collection at NAU Art Museum,\u201d which will be on display May 25 through July 8. The collection offers an exceptional range of media, themes and expressive forms in works of art dating from the middle of the 20th century to today. The artwork has been collected for decades, most recently by museum director George Speer<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Rivera<\/a>
“Girl with Apron” by Diego Rivera<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The exhibition features original artwork by Diego Rivera, R.C. Gorman and other well-known \u201cThen\u201d artists, including Francisco Zu\u00f1iga, William Zorach, Philip Curtis and John Wade Hampton. Notable \u201cNow\u201d artists include Sherrie Wolf, Adrian Hatfield, Mary Shindell\u00a0and NAU art teachers Steve Schaeffer<\/strong>, Painter and David Williams<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis exhibition\u2019s rarely seen paintings, sculptures, ceramics and printmakings reflect a vital creative community and demonstrate the evolution of the museum as an institution,\u201d Speer said. \u201cThe show mixes significant works of a more or less representational nature with examples of recent acquisitions that challenge our preconceptions about what certain media and themes \u2018look like.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Opening the exhibition during the summer allowed for a wider audience to experience this unique collection, with people from throughout the country and even the world coming through Flagstaff on their vacations.<\/p>\n

The NAU Art Museum<\/a> is open from noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday at 620 S. Knoles Drive on NAU\u2019s Flagstaff campus.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the years following graduate school, Brian Painter found himself living a nomadic lifestyle, moving from university town to university town. He felt like he was constantly packing and unpacking, moving from Tucson to Madison, Wisconsin, before coming to Northern Arizona University. \u201cThe university life is a transient life,\u201d he said. \u201cYou want to set…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":47653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-happenings"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}