PRESS RELEASE

March 22, 2005

Noted art critic to give slide lecture on UO's Morris Graves collection
Wolff to speak on campus April 8

EUGENE-Noted art critic Theodore Wolff will discuss the evolution of Northwest artist Morris Graves in a free public talk, "The Creative Journey of Morris Graves: Clues from the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art Collection," at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 8, in Room 100 of Willamette Hall, 1371 E. 13th Ave. on the University of Oregon campus.

Wolff, author of two books on Morris Graves (1910-2001), will give the talk after spending a week on campus, delving into the largest public collection of works by Graves. The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art houses more than 400 original works by the great Northwest artist, including preparatory drawings, notations, sketches and paintings spanning a period of three decades in the artist's career.

"Morris Graves is an important artist in the history of modern American art, and Ted Wolff's curatorial eye will offer us insight into his creative genius," says Lawrence Fong, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art's associate director and curator of American and regional art. "Moreover, our Graves archive is not well known beyond campus, and Wolff's lecture will reveal the rarity and uniqueness of this collection."

A professional artist, art appraiser and art critic for more than 50 years, Wolff was an art critic for the Christian Science Monitor from 1977 to 1990. In 2002, he presented the O'Fallon Lecture in Art and American Culture to a capacity crowd on the UO campus.

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, 1430 Johnson Lane, reopened in January 2005 after a major renovation and expansion project which nearly doubled the size of the building. An intimate gallery dedicated to the art of Morris Graves is among the museum's new spaces.

This program, a joint offering of the museum and the university's Oregon Humanities Center, is supported in part by a gift from Roger Hall. For more information, call (541) 346-3934.

Contact: Melody Ward Leslie, (541) 346-3020, mleslie@uoregon.edu

Source: Katie Sproles, (541) 346-0942, ksproles@uoregon.edu

Links:
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art: http://jsma.uoregon.edu
Oregon Humanities Center: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~humanctr/

###