Friday, January 16, 1998
The University Daily Kansan
Section A · Page 7
Spencer Museum still growing at 20
chorton@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
By Chris Horton
Tomorrow night offers an opportunity for the University of Kansas to celebrate the Spencer Museum of Art's 20th anniversary — and to consider its future.
From 7 to 10 p.m. the museum will feature brief, informal speeches by curators, live music and, of course, birthday cake.
Live music for the celebration will be provided by jazz group The Ben Graham Trio and the country-rock band Fear and Whisky.
Chancellor Robert Hemenway is one of several speakers scheduled for the celebration.
"I think Spencer is one of the unsung treasures of the University, and we should both recognize and celebrate it," Hemenway said. "It is essential that the museum is an integral part of the education offered at the University."
Andrea Norris, museum director since July 1988, has witnessed the museum's growth in the last 10 years.
Norris said 2,000 objects had been added to the collection
"The museum is bursting at the seams," she said.
since her arrival.
The building was completed in 1978, financed by a $4.6 million gift to the University by Helen Foresman Spencer. Since then, it has become home for an art collection of all styles. Norris said.
"In the last decade, we've experienced a great diversification of artist demographics, whether it be African-American or Hispanic art, or art by women," she said.
The Asian collection also has flourished, with acquisitions including a wooden Amida Buddha sculpture and a collection of 18th- and 20th-century Japanese screens, she said.
At the top of Norris' wish list is more space, which she said could be satisfied by expanding the building into the Memorial Stadium parking lot north of the museum.
"We'd like to provide more teaching spaces," Norris said, adding that orientation spaces and classrooms would complement the museum. She said a north entrance also would provide more access for visitors with handicaps.
Museum worker Janet Dreiling assembles a display case for a Chinese calligraphy exhibit in the Spencer Art Museum. The exhibit will open tomorrow during the museum's 20th anniversary party. Photo by Roger Nomer/KANSAN
No Band-Aids at Johnson and Johnson show
KU professor Ted Johnson, son exhibit work at Lawrence Art Center this month
By Tamara Miller Kansan staff writer
Ted Johnson used to teach his son, Stephen, about life and art with building blocks. Now the two are using pencils to demonstrate the relationship between life and art in a father-and-son illustrations exhibit at the Lawrence Art Center.
The exhibit, "Drawings from Life," features figure illustrations by Ted Johnson, professor of French, and his son Stephen Johnson, a 1987 KU alumnus with bachelor's degrees in illustration and drawing.
"I find these five people to be very lively persons," Ted Johnson said. "They're diverse and open up per-
The exhibit opened Jan. 5 and runs through Feb. 6. Accompanying the exhibit tonight from 7 to 9:30 is a poetry reading by five area poets.
spective."
Rick Mitchell, director of special programs at the art center said he came up with the idea about two years ago to open an exhibit with Ted Johnson's figure drawings. When he found out about Stephen Johnson's work through Kansas Alumni magazine, he asked the two if they wanted to do an exhibit together
"We were thinking about increasing the variety," he said. "I thought it would be good to have a father-and-son exhibit."
This isn't the first time that an art exhibit was a Johnson family affair. Ted Johnson's father, J. Theodore Johnson, was a professional artist until his death in 1963. In 1989, the center played host to an exhibit that contained work by all three.
"It was called the Three Generations of Johnsons," Stephen
Johnson said.
Art always has been a centerpiece of the Johnson family's life, Ted Johnson said. In addition to French literature, he also teaches a humanities course that uses art to enhance understanding. For example, students in the humanities course are asked to draw the Natural History Museum.
"Drawing is an important element in the courses that I teach," he said. "I want to teach the correlation between life and art."
Ted Johnson meets weekly with a group, called the 500 Locust Group, to work on drawing and illustrations, he said. Most of his work in the exhibit comes from his participation with this group.
Stephen Johnson contributed work he had done for the book Hoops by Robert Burleigh. His illustrations are of basketball players from a New York high school. Johnson lives in New York as a professional illustrator and came back to Lawrence before the opening to help set up the show.
"We were thinking about increasing the variety, I thought it would be good to have a father-and-son exhibit."
Rick Mitchell
director of special programs, Lawrence Art Center
Mitchell said both artists' work represented classical figure drawing, but had their own identities.
"Ted's work is really classical figure drawing and very much in the tradition of art training," he said. "Stephen's work shows that classical training, but he's taken that into contemporary illustration."
Ted Johnson said many of his influences were from the 17th century, but now his biggest influence.
"Stephen's my favorite artist," he said.
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