August 23, 1996




Walter Chapell's Untitled (Mother and Child), 1962, is among photographs featured in Human Form: The Photographed Nude, opening at the Sheldon Sept. 10.

New Sheldon Exhibit Explores History of Photographed Nude

The photographed nude is the focus of a special exhibition at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery beginning Sept. 10. Human Form: The Photographed Nude is drawn from Sheldon's renowned collection of photography, focusing on the human form and surveying the utilization of the nude as a subject in the history of photography from Eadweard Muybridge to Robert Mapplethorpe. Forty-five works tracing the development of photography, the exhibition reflects a wide range of aesthetic issues, techniques and styles.

In the early history of photography, the photographed nude flourished, as many painters and sculptors used these etudes academiques for their studies, as it was more economical for many artists to be able to purchase photos then to hire a live model. J. Laurie Wallace's undated Untitled (The Artist's Model from an Untitled portfolio) is an example of these studio studies. Such studio photographs were greatly utilized by well-known artists such as French Impressionist Edgar Degas, and American Realist Thomas Eakins.

A pioneering photographer, Eadweard Muybridge in the 1870s invented his own camera for the purpose of capturing movement in a series of sequential images. His efforts were for both scientific and investigative purposes. His first series of sequences were labeled "Animal Locomotion." In spite of its name, the series did not only deal with animals but also with the human figure in motion. This work had a profound influence on science as well as fine art. An example of this well-known series, Woman Rising from a Reclining Position, 1887, is included in the exhibition.

During the second half of the 19th century, influenced by the allegorical and symbolic painting of the time, many photographers were intent on creating photos that were aesthetic rather than documentary. These Pictorialists derived their meaning from their expressive suggestive powers rather than their accurate translation of reality. Their work took on a romantic soft focus that complimented the narrative they contain. Work such as Adam and Eve (The Supplicant), 1923, by Imogen Cunningham, as well as Nude (Bertha's Legs), 1927.

Selections for Human Form: The Photographed Nude are not only reflective of the changing attitude toward the human form, both in gender and politics, but are also representative of the visual trends in art, reflecting current ideas and issues within the aesthetic dialogue of a given period. Such experimentation and surrealist overtones are reflected in Edmund Teske's Torso, Leaves Ascendant, 1942-45, and much later, Joel Peter Witkin's staged tableaux of personal nightmares, using actors and props, creating a surreal dream in The Wife of Cain, 1981.

Essentially a 20th-century phenomenon, fragmentation of the human body is reflected in many contemporary photographs. Photographers such as Ruth Bernhard, Irving Penn and Ralph Gibson often utilized the cropped, fragmented images of the figure to create abstract forms that serve as metaphors for landscape.

The exhibit runs through Nov. 24.

Faulkner Heads Recital Series


Quentin Faulkner, (shown at left), Steinhart Distinguished Professor of Organ and Music Theory/History at UNL, will perform Widor's Fifth Symphony for Organ in a lecture/recital at 8 p.m. Sept. 5 in Kimball Recital Hall. The performance will be the first of the season for the UNL School of Music's Faculty Recital Series.






Alison Krauss and Union Station will kick off the new Lied Center season when they perform at 8 p.m. Sept. 6.

Bluegrass Songbird Alison Krauss Opens Lied Season

Bluegrass diva Alison Krauss, who began entering fiddling contests at 8 and was a fiddle and viola prodigy at 12, will open the 1996-97 season at the Lied Center for Performing Arts at 8 p.m. Sept. 6. The coming season will include at least 30 attractions and concludes April 6, 1997, with flutist James Galway.

Krauss has helped usher bluegrass music into the '90s with songs that range from purist traditionals to country spirituals to pop standards from the Beatles. During the last few years, Krauss and her Union Station band have earned renown among bluegrass followers. They've abandoned the usual repolishing of old chestnut tunes, instead putting the genre's homespun style and her brand of buoyant, skittering bluegrass to a wide range of material.

Krauss records traditional fiddle tunes like Cluck Old Hen. But she's also tackled a Bad Company song (Oh, Atlanta) and takes on a Top 40 ditty like the Foundations' Baby Now That I've Found You, which she makes fresh and haunting, a near-prayer for love or "folkgrass," as one critic suggested.

"Making a record to please people (bluegrass purists) or because you fear them getting mad is selling out-no matter which way you go," says Krauss. She's developed a distinctive body of work with country music subject matter, modern folk lyrics, and bluegrass music lit by a pure, melting soprano.

As comfortable with Lennon and McCartney as Flatt and Scruggs, her innovative yet nostalgic mix has been a winning one. Last year, Krauss was named Female Vocalist of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards. It was another laurel for a career that has included two Grammy awards for bluegrass albums. And in 1993, at the age of 21, she became the first bluegrass artist in three decades to be inducted into the Grand Ole Opry. Her recent, Now That I've Found You: A Collection, has sold more than 2 million copies.

Ticket information is available at the Lied Center box office with walk-in sales weekdays from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and 90 minutes before the performance. Phone orders may be placed by calling 472-4747.

Ticket holders for the Alison Krauss show also may attend an educational pre-performance talk by Dave Steele (Andy Fibian), program manager at Lincoln's FROGGY 98 Radio Station. Two talks are scheduled in the Lied Center's Steinhart Room 55 minutes and 30 minutes before the 8 p.m. performance.

Patrick McGaw and Kelly Lynch succumb to temptation in The Beans of Egypt, Maine, airing at 9 p.m. Aug. 30 on the Nebraska ETV Network.

Nebraska ETV to Present 'The Beans of Egypt, Maine'

The rowdy, tragicomic world of the Bean family of rural Maine comes to life when American Playhouse presents The Beans of Egypt, Maine, adapted from Carolyn Chute's best-selling debut novel of the same name. Starring Martha Plimpton (Parenthood, Running on Empty), Kelly Lynch (Drugstore Cowboy), Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner) and Patrick McGraw (The Basketball Diaries), the dramatization airs from 9-11 p.m. Aug. 30 on the Nebraska ETV Network.

Feisty, flinty young Earlene Pomerleau (Plimpton) is secretly attracted to her neighbor Beal (McGraw), good-looking spawn of the fertile Bean family-whose scandal-ridden life in the run-down trailer across the way is far more entertaining to her than television.

Earlene's Bible-thumping father stands ready for retribution should she even think friendly thoughts about the contemptible Beans. Predictably, Earlene runs away and into the arms of the forbidden Beal. Local disdain for the "white trash" Beans runs so deep that even after Earlene's pregnancy, it takes six years and family tragedy to induce her to identify the child's father and marry him.
Thus, she at last comes to know firsthand the life of the Beans, a hard-working, hard-living clan with limited skills. They get by on wood-cutting, log-hauling and odd jobs, staying only one step ahead of disaster.

The Beans of Egypt, Maine, takes an unblinking yet compassionate look at America's rural underclass. The program deals with mature themes and is closed captioned for hearing-impaired viewers. The complete program schedule for Nebraska ETV is available on NET's World Wide Web site, http://net.unl.edu.

'Welcome to the Dollhouse' Opening at the Ross

Welcome to the Dollhouse, opening at the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater on Aug. 29, is Todd Solondz's funny-shading-into-brutal film about adolescent hell in suburban New Jersey.
Heather Matarazzo, a spectacularly poised 11-year-old, is Dawn Wiener, a miserably unpopular, dorky, nearsighted seventh grader in Dollhouse, winner of the Best Picture Award at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Director Solondz creates keen portraits of the characters in Dawn's daily (if somewhat outlandish) drama.

Also showing is a short feature, animator Paul Vester's The Abductees, a canorously penetrating probe into the dicey world of alien abduction.

The presentation of this program at the Ross Film Theater is made possible, in part, with the support of the Nebraska Arts Council, a state agency.

Welcome to the Dollhouse and The Abductees are showing Aug. 29 through Sept. 1 and Sept. 4 through Sept. 8 at 5, 7 and 9 p.m. Wednesday; 7 and 9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 1,3,7, and 9 p.m. on Saturdays; and 3, 5, 7 and 9 p.m. on Sundays. (Note: There are no screenings scheduled on Friday, Sept. 6 and no 3 p.m. screening scheduled on Sunday, Sept. 8.) There is an admission charge.

Winkler Exhibition Highlights Bay Area Graphics

John W. Winkler: Master Printer, an exhibition of works on paper drawn primarily from the Sheldon Gallery's permanent collection, focuses on graphic works from the early part of this artist's career, during which he executed scenes of the San Francisco Bay Area. This selection of works not only reveals the changing appearance of San Francisco during the first decades of this century, but also demonstrates how Winkler was a "master printer"-that is, an artist wholly involved in all phases of the art of etching. The exhibition will run from Aug. 27 to Nov. 24 at the Sheldon.

Winkler was born in Vienna, Austria in the late 19th century to a family with noble origins. Intrigued by stories of the "Wild West" he had read in paperback novels, Winkler came to America in 1910. After a brief stay in Giltner, Neb., Winkler settled in northern California and enrolled in classes at the San Francisco Art Institute. He began his etching career around 1913, producing his first prints during an etching renaissance that was engendered in America by the prints of James McNeill Whistler and fostered in the Bay Area by the California Society of Printmakers. The quality of his early work quickly earned him a reputation as an etcher comparable to the Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn. In 1922, Winkler moved to Europe and worked in Paris and London. He returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1930, where he remained until his death in 1979.

Although Winkler treated a broad range of subjects during his artistic career, his graphic works are linked by his practice of working from observation. Winkler preferred to work en plein air, rendering his subjects directly from life. Included in this exhibition are myriad etchings focusing on the topography of San Francisco-its hills, wharves, Chinatown, and East San Francisco Bay. Representative examples of his observations in Paris as well as drawings of various subjects are also included.

Winkler's style is characterized by an emphasis on line and a brevity of expression. In his graphic works, line alone is used to describe the color and texture of his subjects, as well as the effects of light and atmosphere. While the picture plane is often flattened, the illusion of depth is created by alternating bands of pattern and void, including diagonal lines, and placing the horizon line high up in compositions. Winkler tended to leave large areas of his plate open, organizing his compositions with long, sweeping lines that lead the eye from areas of minimal development to small clusters of intricate detail. Consequently, his subjects are depicted as if they were seen at a glance; peripheral areas are indicated in an economical manner, while the centers of focus are highly developed. This unique effect has led others to describe Winkler's prints as "the essence of selective line."

While contemporary "master printers" strive for uniformity and large quantities in their editions, Winkler sought a diverse number of plates, created a vast quantity of states, used a variety of paper and inks, and experimented with the effects of changing press pressures. Eager to conserve the integrity of expression in each image, Winkler immersed himself in all phases of the art of etching. Winkler's large body of work is a manifestation of the creative impulse, where the artist continued exploring options from the inception of the concept to the completion of the printed piece.

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