When discussing the Fine Arts Center on the University of Arkansas campus and its contents, we're often using the term mid-century. Well, the Fine Arts Center opened to campus and community in 1951. It's difficult to be much more mid-century. Much like this month's reopening, the 1951 opening was a celebratory affair. John Blakinger, endowed associate professor of contemporary art and program director of art history at the University of Arkansas, examines the opening of the center in his essay "Making Arkansas Modern: An Exhibition of Contemporary Art in Edward Durell Stone's Fine Arts Center." The essay is written for a digital exhibition created in conjunction with this month's reopening. He credits Catherine Wallack with Special Collections for her work in the development of the exhibition. Blakinger says David Durst was chair of the university's art department in 1951, and he was asked to transform the arts on campus, and that included the 1951 show, an exhibition of contemporary art.
John Blakinger: This exhibition was a kind of key inaugural moment in which to showcase what is possible in Arkansas. He organized this exhibition. It included some really extraordinary works — examples by Picasso, Max Ernst, Miró. The list goes on and on. These really significant figures of modern art that he brings to the University of Arkansas. And the idea is that it would be the kind of celebratory show. It was not actually the first exhibition, but it was the exhibition on view for the formal dedication of the building, which happened at commencement of spring 1951.
Kyle Kellams: I think if someone in 2026 hears that a university campus is opening a new fine arts building, they go, well, that's great. But it wouldn't sound special, right? What was special about mid-century University of Arkansas?
Blakinger: Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I think we take it for granted now that a university would have a center for the arts or a kind of site on campus where the arts are foregrounded. It really is a new idea at mid-century, this notion of bringing together music, theater, visual arts, architecture, putting them all under one roof and, in a way, using the architecture to facilitate connections across disciplines — connections between different creative fields, between faculty. So it is really a novel concept to do this in the 1950s, and it becomes a kind of model that other campuses emulate and copy. And it becomes, I think, a kind of standard feature of a university or college campus to have a center for the fine arts. But it's really a new concept, and it does succeed, I would say, in creating new interdisciplinary connections at the University of Arkansas. David Durst works hard to get these works of art. In fact, it seems like the state knows that he's going to do this because there's a top-fold Arkansas Gazette article that says Durst has left for New York. There's a kind of breathless coverage of Durst's pursuit to organize this exhibition. He travels to New York City, he negotiates loans from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, from the Whitney Museum of American Art, from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, from the Corcoran Gallery, Washington University in St. Louis — many very significant museums as well as university collections to bring all of this work to Arkansas. And the coverage is kind of extraordinary to look at. There's an enthusiasm and excitement about the idea that these remarkable paintings, works of art, sculptures are being sent to Arkansas. There's a real excitement in the coverage.
Kellams: There's a really great connection. You write in your essay that there is a photograph of Durst unboxing "The Mountain Ford" by Thomas Cole.
Blakinger: Yes. I mean, I was kind of shocked, actually, to see this, especially if you've been in the Fine Arts Center. The notion that these works of art are just on view in what is now functionally a lobby is really kind of shocking and surprising. And yes, I found this news coverage about the Fine Arts Center and about Durst, and it shows him unboxing this work by Thomas Cole. And you can recognize the vinyl flooring of the Fine Arts Center and place exactly where he is. And I think it's kind of hard to get in the mind frame of the 1950s. You know, the fact that the inaugural show that Durst organizes includes Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" — I mean, that's amazing just to think that that's on view on campus is really kind of extraordinary.
Kellams: When I first saw that "Nighthawks" had been here, of course at that point it was only like a 10-year-old painting — it hadn't reached the iconic status it has now.
Blakinger: Right. I mean, this is part of what I see looking at the exhibition that Durst organized — he has a good eye, an eye for talent. And he is really on the cutting edge of what's happening in the art world. I think he has a lot of connections. Partly it's his network. He had a relationship with Philip Guston, with many significant artists. And I think that's part of what it reflects. But yes, he knows what's happening in the art world and he's trying to bring the art world to Arkansas.
Kellams: Do we have any idea of what it did take to physically get these works here? What was security like at the Fine Arts Building in 1951?
Blakinger: As far as I can tell, there was no security. And also worth emphasizing for those of us who've been through the Arkansas summer, there's no air conditioning. These works were just on view on modular panels in what is now the lobby space of the building. And I did find some news coverage of a theft that was reported. It wasn't works of art — I think it was film projectors or other equipment that was stolen from the theater of the Fine Arts Center, and someone was, I think, brought to court over this. So yes, theft was a risk. The gallery standards that we would now have did not exist in 1951. There didn't seem to be much of a concern around climate control or access to works, locking the building. No one really mentions any of that.
Kellams: There was also national coverage of the opening of this building, of this exhibition. I believe Life magazine had some coverage.
Blakinger: There's a Life magazine spread. It's from a feature about the rise of the arts in the Midwest, and it showcases different regional destinations. There is a two-page spread on the Fine Arts Center, and it includes some interesting photographs. There are some interesting phrases they use as well. They refer to the "Arkansas avant-garde." They show students in Razorback gear walking through the gallery as if it's a thoroughfare, and make a joke that, oh, well, they're off to the tennis courts and the stadium. But I think the spread also reflects a kind of national interest in modernism, in modern art, and this idea that the arts are really transforming what is happening on university campuses, which was of interest to readers everywhere.
Kellams: So there's this wonderful connection — we talked about "The Mountain Ford" from Thomas Cole in that photograph being unboxed. And of course Thomas Cole is a figure captured in "Kindred Spirits," the acquisition of which is kind of what put Crystal Bridges on the national and international map. So there's that coincidental line. But do you think there is a line from 1951, to what was happening in the middle of the University of Arkansas campus, to what we have now?
Blakinger: Yes. I mean, I see a very clear through line. I think one thing that Durst and also the university administration — Lewis Webster Jones as university president — I think they have a mission, a kind of agenda to bring culture to Arkansas and to use art, and art broadly, including music and theater, as a way to create cultural legitimacy, to give recognition to what is happening here and to be part of a national conversation, to put Arkansas on the map. I see a similar purpose in some of the other arts initiatives in the region. Crystal Bridges absolutely is doing the same thing, functioning the same way, making the Ozarks a destination for art, which is something that Durst is really trying to do in a very instrumental way.
John Blakinger is endowed associate professor of contemporary art and program director of art history at the University of Arkansas, and author of the essay "Making Arkansas Modern: An Exhibition of Contemporary Art in Edward Durell Stone's Fine Arts Center." The essay is part of a digital exhibition curated by Special Collections at the University of Arkansas for the Fine Arts Center's reopening this month. There is also a physical exhibition at the center featuring items from its first years.
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