News Release
Faculty member co-curator of Palmer Museum exhibit
March 3, 2009
Robin Veder
A pioneering artist’s effort to connect breathing with art comprises the newest exhibit at University Park’s Palmer Museum of Art.
Co-curated by Penn State Harrisburg faculty member Robin Veder, “Breathing Motions: Figure Studies by Arthur B. Davies,” is open to the public through May 2. Veder will offer a gallery tour on Friday, April 24 at 12:10 p.m.
An American symbolist painter, printmaker, and tapestry designer, Davies (1862-1928) is best known for his depictions of classical fantasy painted in a Romantic style, but best remembered for his leadership in introducing modern European painting styles into the early 20th century U.S.
“Arthur B. Davies thought all great art of all time should show breathing, so he was experimenting with different ways to bring his figures to life,” Veder points out. “His emphasis on the visualization of breathing appears in his artwork through a number of recurring poses.”
“The exhibit includes lithography among other forms and literally visualizes the act of breathing in connection with art, exercise, and dance,” the assistant professor of humanities and art history/visual culture adds.
Many of the pieces have ancient Greek influences because Davies believed the Greeks were the first to depict breathing in their art, she said. "And a number of the innovative dancers of the early 1900s were very interested in dance connected to breathing," Veder said. "Some of these dancers posed for him."
The exhibit, co-curated with the Palmer’s Curator of American Art Leo Mazov, is an outgrowth of Veder’s senior fellowship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington during fall 2008.
As part of the fellowship, Veder researched “embodied modernism” by looking at how exercise and dance contributed to American modern art aesthetics in the period of 1880 to 1940. Davies was the central figure in her study.
Veder will be giving an invited lecture at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History’s Tuesday Colloquium Series on March 17. The talk is entitled “Cultivating Modern Habits: Perseverance and Perception in the Early 20th-century Gymnasium, Art Studio, and Exhibition Gallery.”
In her talk, Veder will argue than an “elite coterie of American artists and art collectors applied proprioception – one’s awareness of body alignment, direction, and speed of movement – to both making and viewing modern art. This finding changes the histories of popular exercise and modern art,” she says. The lecture results from research funded by a Penn State Harrisburg Research Council grant and the Smithsonian Senior Fellowship.