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Theater & Arts
Dayton Art Institute marks its 90th year
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Staff Writer
3:07 PM Friday, July 24, 2009
DAYTON — There will be time for reminiscing and time for absorbing new ideas, time for viewing old treasures in new light and time for paying homage.
It is time for a 90th anniversary and the Dayton Art Institute has reason to celebrate.
The special year kicked off with the William Morris glass exhibit (extended to Aug. 2) and continues with “90 Treasures,” a closer examination of art regularly found in the permanent collection. Take your cell phone along to hear tidbits about many of the pieces.
Two new shows will arrive in October, one of them featuring work by surrealist Salvador Dali in collaboration with Walt Disney.
“Dali and Disney: The Art and Animation of Destino” is on loan from Springboro couple, Dr. Lawrence and Holley Thompson. Their unique collection traces its history back to 1946, when the popular studio hired the famous artist to work on an upcoming feature film.
“Apparently when Dali came to the United States, he immediately identified Walt Disney as being America’s greatest surrealist,” says DAI director Jan Driesbach.
During an eight-month period, Dali produced the paintings, pen-and-ink drawings and storyboards for the short animation piece that was slated to be incorporated into a feature film. But due to financial reasons, the project was axed.
Years later, in 1999, Disney’s nephew, Roy, resurrected “Destino” from the Disney vaults and completed the film in 2003.
The DAI will show both prints of Dali’s art and the animated short in its free exhibit.
A second exhibition titled “Hello World!” brings out rarely seen art from the DAI vaults that spans 2,000 years and organizes it by motifs such as “hands” rather than by era.
So a grouping of faces, for example, might bring together an African mask, a Picasso print and an Egyptian sculpture.
Driesbach says the pieces represent collections that could never be replicated today — including European, American, Asian, African and Pre-Columbian art.
“A lot of these pieces are simply no longer available in the market,” she said.
In addition to the exhibits, the anniversary year will include programming ranging from family art adventures and belly dancing to family portraits and traditional teas.
Driesbach says its amazing that a small museum that started in a mansion on Monument Avenue with a sculpture and three paintings has grown to include 26,000 objects housed in “a magnificent building on a bluff overlooking the river.”
Museum benefactor Julia Shaw Cornell remains an inspiration.
“She envisioned and created this building that opened in 1930, a time that also had severe economic challenges, and she had the vision and wherewithal to see that this came into being,” Driesbach says.
Shared memories will also be an integral part of the anniversary year.
One example? Chief curator Will South invited two local artists — Tess Cortes of Wright State University and Mary Ann Kirk of ThinkTV — to create art for the anniversary year that would involve the membership.
The result is a multi-media art installation that captures stories about the museum from folks who volunteered to reminisce.
“Their favorite memories will float out of a sound system, you’ll see faces appear and emerge, mimicking the way we might think back on things in our own memories,” South said.
“Our members are a great treasure,” he concludes, “even more so than the collection or the building.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2440 or mmoss@Dayton
DailyNews.com.
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