MOUNT VERNON — The largest art show ever presented at Cornell College, a retrospective exhibition of nearly 300 works by art professor emeritus Hugh Lifson, opens Sunday, Oct. 7, in Armstrong Gallery with a reception from 2-4 p.m. A second reception will be held during Cornell’s homecoming on Saturday, Oct. 20, from 3-5 p.m.
Much of the work in “Hugh Lifson: The Cornell Years” has been on exhibit since late August on the third floor of Cole Library and in four locations in The Commons — the Orange Carpet, the Rathskeller Snack Bar, Shaw Lounge and Hedges Conference Room. The satellite exhibitions end Nov. 19. The Armstrong exhibition closes Dec. 9. Admission is free to all galleries.
A native of New York, Lifson taught art at Cornell from 1963 until his retirement in 1999. Early in his 36-year career at Cornell while discussing Plato with a colleague, he wrapped an ashtray of cigarette butts in plastic, declaring he had transformed it into an object of beauty. This led to a long period of wrapping acrylic paintings and what University of Iowa art professor Wallace Tomasini, writing in the exhibition catalog, calls Lifson’s “most noteworthy original contribution” to art. During the Vietnam War, the plastic wrap — manufactured with the same chemicals as napalm — took on added meaning as symbolic of body bags.
“Deeply committed to the complex cultural developments, movements and controversies of his time, he is not solely an artist, but an artiste-philosophe, equally articulate and conversant in all of the fine arts, the humanities and the communication technologies of our contemporary world,” writes Tomasini.
By the 1980s Lifson turned confidently to computer graphics and was an early advocate of cyberspace as an art medium. During his retirement he has returned to a more traditional method of painting. His art has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, the St. Louis Art Museum and galleries throughout Iowa. The Cornell exhibition includes portraits, computer graphics and computer collages, nudes, watercolors and wrapped acrylics.
“He believes that art can change the world and holds others up to that lofty goal,” Cornell art professor Christina McOmber wrote in the exhibition catalog. “His presence and enthusiasm are impossible to ignore. They draw us into a deeper conversation about our place or role in society.”
Beginning Oct. 29, Lifson will lead a four-session Chautauqua course covering his Greenwich Village upbringing, his early years as an artist and figures from the art world that have influenced his work. “Hugh Lifson Self-Portrait: A Reflection on my Life as an Artist” continues Nov. 5, 12 and 19. Classes run 9 a.m. to noon in Hedges Conference Room of The Commons at Cornell. Cost is $35; registration deadline is Oct. 24. Call 895-4119.
The retrospective exhibition is supported in part with a grant from the Iowa Arts Council.