Several pieces of art from the University of Iowa’s collection — including a painting from Grant Wood — will be on display at various facilities around the state after a donation to the university’s art museum. Matthew and Kay Bucksbaum of Chicago are donating a half-million dollars to display art work.
Museum director, Sean O’Harrow, says the gift allows them to bring out works of art that were put in storage after the 2008 flood destroyed the U-I’s art buildings. “The collection at the University of Iowa Museum of Art is about 14-thousand objects. And we are only able to display a small fraction of that. So the thought is, how do we get to other parts of the state?,” O”Harrow explains. “Because we have this Bucksbaum-funded ‘legacies for Iowa’, we’re able now to take these collections on the road and partner with other institutions and use their infrastructure to display our material.”
Arrangements are already in place for some of the art. “Well, we’re loaning ‘Plaid Sweater’ which is Grant Wood’s famous painting. We’re loaning that to the Dubuque Museum of Art in 2014. And before that, in fall of 2013, we have the Power of Line, European and American prints from the etching revival at the University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art,” O’Harrow says.
O’Harrow says he expects requests for U-I works of art to be coming from throughout Iowa.