Alumni Reunion Exhibition (1990)

This year marks the final time that the reunion exhibition will be mounted in Taylor Hall, the gallery's home for the past seventy-five years. To help celebrate this event, an exhibition of work by Vassar's legendary professor of art C. K. Chatterton (1880-1973) has been installed in the Warburg Print Room. Chatterton, who began teaching at Vassar in the fall of 1915, retired as a full professor in 1948. Among the earliest artists-in-residence at an American college, Chatterton established one of the first departments of applied art which offered the kind of instruction found in art schools. Chatterton's appointment at the college coincided with the dedication of Taylor Hall on Founder's Day 1915. Upon his arrival at Vassar, Chatterton, along with art department chairman Oliver Tonks, developed the art gallery as a place to study art not only from Vassar's own collection but from a series of loan exhibitions as well. Indeed, the first exhibition mounted in Taylor Hall—a loan exhibition of American paintings—included a work by Chatterton and several works by his friends and former colleagues at the New York School of Art.

The Title of this year's show "A Thirst for Art" has been borrowed from John Sloan's witty depiction of a crowded gallery opening. The etching, which is included in this exhibition, the gift of Mrs. James S. Graham (Sarah J. Sillcocks '35), was selected as a means of honoring all generous alumnae/i who have transformed their "thirst for art" into gifts to the collection.

Six Vassar students in the museum studies seminar prepared the checklist for the exhibition as part of their course requirements. What better training for our art history majors than to learn about exhibitions by actually preparing one from start to finish? To Tamara Beckwith '90, Jennifer Buchman '90, Matthew Ehrlich '91, Julia Lee '90, Claude Meyers '90 and Torrance O'Connor '91, are due my sincere appreciation for their painstaking search through the object files to compile the checklist and their carefully-reasoned selection of objects to display given the space limitaitons of the loan gallery.

I would also like to thank the gallery staff, particularly gallery preparator, John Miller, for designing a fine installation. I am grateful to Joann Potter, registrar and gallery assistants, Kathe Nack and James Palmer '90, as well as staff members, Mary Eddy and Olga Kay and Bev Doppel and Wendy Curtis from the Friends of Vassar Art Gallery, for their invaluable help in planning all aspects of the exhibition. I also wish to thank Patricia MacDougall and John Apicella at Cesar Pelli & Associates for their time and effort in preparing the model of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center for display during Reunion Weekend. Finally, I give my deepest appreciation to all the donors who have enhanced the collection over the years.

—Rebecca E. Lawton, Curator of Collections