Department of Art in the Caine School of the Arts Celebrates 100 Years

The Caine School of the Arts’s Department of Art is celebrating 100 years at Utah State University. As part of the commemoration, a faculty exhibit is on display Oct. 6-30 in the Twain B. Tippetts Gallery in the Chase Fine Arts Center on the USU campus (approximately 1110 E. 610 North, Logan). An opening reception is Monday, Oct. 6, from 5-7 p.m., and the public is invited.

“This department has deep roots that reach to all corners of the USU campus,” says Carolyn Cárdenas, department head of the Department of Art. “We want to celebrate those connections, and one of the ways we’re doing it is to display the talents of our artists through the Faculty Exhibition.”

 

Utah State began in 1888 as the Utah State Agricultural College. Twenty years later, in 1908, Calvin Fletcher was appointed the first art department head. Fletcher, who studied with New York-based painter Robert Henri, directed the department for 39 years and developed a four-person faculty. In 1957, the college became Utah State University, boasting an exceptional art department centered on teaching painting, drawing and art history. Courses were designed to develop art skills for the art major and provide cultural experiences for the community and university populace in general, goals consistent with USU’s land grant identity.

 

Today the department is vigorous and evolving, Cárdenas said. Faculty members are professionally active on an international stage with projects in Austria, Japan, China, Korea, Germany, Scotland, Switzerland, Poland and Greece. The 19 current faculty hold degrees from highly recognized institutions, including Oxford, Yale, Cranbrook Academy, Rhode Island School of Design, Parsons, UC Berkeley, Drake and universities of Oregon, Kansas, Iowa and Seoul. The faculty have been honored with awards ranging from Fulbright, Guggenheim and Pollack-Krasner fellowships to the Rome Prize. Cárdenas said the department also sponsors lively programs such as the Visiting Artists Lecture Series and Artists-In-Residence, underwritten by the Caine Foundation, as well as workshops and cultural exchange exhibitions.

 

“As a faculty we are committed to bridging our 100-year legacy of exquisite craftsmanship with twenty-first century innovation,” Cárdenas said. “The mission statement says it all: we want to provide rigorous technical training and intellectual challenge; we are creating the environment of an artists’ colony within the framework of a liberal arts education.”

 

More information about USU’s Caine School of the Arts is available at its Web site. For more information about the Faculty Exhibition, call the art department office at (435) 797-3460, or the CSA Box Office, (435) 797-8022.

 

 

Contact: Carolyn Cárdenas, 435-797-3491; carolyn.cardenas@usu.edu
Writer: Sally Okelberry, 435-797-1500; sally.okelberry@usu.edu