Valparaiso University - Beacon / Record Yearbook (Valparaiso, IN)

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Self Portrait, 1854 19

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18 GALLERY itWe really need a museum facility to preserve the quality of the works, a temperature and humidity-controlled building with the proper lighting for the works shown. Itis on the Universityls list of priorities, but not at the top, maybe not Close to the top. If one was asked where the only' open public museum in Northwest lndiana is, how many would know that it is right here on VUts campus. Professor Richard Brauer, the director of the University Art Galleries and Collections, isn't hiding it. But with the works scattered throughout campus in Christ College, the Union and the library, it becomes quite obvious that VU needs a building in which they can house the works and also have proper preservation equipment regulating humidity and temperature. Brauer works out of a dimly lit comer of the library. Despite the drawbacks, he continues to work to improve and change the conditions. He is proud of the university's collection. Appointed director in 1972, Brauer quietly works surrounded by hundreds of paintings and frames, cluttered work tables and desks, file cabinets, little heat and tlorecent lights The Sloan Collection, which VU officially received in 1958, is the heart of the museum. The endowment to maintain the collection amounted to $150,000 in 1955. Since that time the holdings in the collection have multiplied. Brauer says the increased number of works is due to outstanding investment policies followed by the university-appointed Museum Council charged with overseeing the philosophy, uses and purchases of the collection. itBecause of their financial expertise as well as their commitment to the arts, we are able to purchase one or two major works each year. Through aquisitions and donations, the collection has grown from 380 works to it's present 800. The universityls large group of paintings by Junius R. Sloan forms the core of the collection. The artists son, Percy, inherited 700 of his fathers watercolors and oil paintings in 1923. Percy Sloan, who painted as an evocation but remained a supervisor and art teacher in the Chicago school system, had a strong need to affirm the worth of his father's work and his motherts sacrifices for it. Percy started his 27-year effort to establish an endowed selection of his fathers paintings in a permanent setting, after his mother died in 1923. He held onto the better ones and sold the lesser paintings to start an endowment fund. Through the sale of his house in the mid-40's, he established a trust for the fund and purchased other American works, especially by Hconservative Midwest artists. Sloan, who never married, was very concerned about where the collection would go after his death. Pursueing several avenues, Percy looked at libraries, colleges and museums. He was adamant that the collection be used for education 2 to teach the general public, to increase appreciation of beauty, especially the beauty of nature. The Knitting Lesson, Kewanee, lllinois, 1866

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Lake Memphremagog-Vermont, 1871 SmaH Falls-Kaaterskill Cove, 1860 1w Woodlawn, Chicago, 1892 20