UD’s Roesch Library hosts first sculpture exhibit

HOW TO GO

What: “Art for Citizens and Celebrants: The Sculpture of Robert C. Koepnick.”

Where: University of Dayton’s Roesch Library, 300 College Park, Dayton

When: Through Sept. 7. Hours vary, visit go.udayton.edu/koepnick or call (937) 229-4221.

Admission: Free.

Also on view at the Marian Library Gallery is “Koepnick’s Marian Heritage” through May 3.

Weekdays until 7:30 p.m. visitors must obtain a parking pass at the parking booth on University Circle. Parking is free.

SPECIAL EVENTS:

To hear Robert Koepnick’s son talk about his father and the University of Dayton exhibit, see MyDaytonDailyNews.com

If you live in the Miami Valley, there’s a good chance you’ve come to know and appreciate the work of sculptor Robert C. Koepnick.

If you’ve passed through the gates of the Montgomery County Fairgrounds or visited the downtown Dayton Metro Library, you’ve seen Koepnick’s artistry. If you live — or visit — at Bethany Lutheran Village, you’ve seen his “Pillar of Faith,” and if you’re a Fairview High School graduate, you passed his giant bulldog a thousand times. The famous doggy now sits at Fairview Pre-K8.

Koepnick’s beautiful religious sculptures are on view at churches throughout our region, and throughout the nation as well. At St. Peter in Chains Cathedral in Cincinnati, you’ll see a door and baptismal font constructed of marble and bronze surmounted by a bronze figure of the risen Savior.

A bronze of Huckleberry Finn is in the permanent collection at the Dayton Art Institute, and his sculptures have also been on exhibit in museums across the country including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago.

In addition to the current University of Dayton library lobby display, the Marian Library upstairs has an exhibit titled “Koepnick’s Marian Heritage” that features Koepnick’s sculptures and will be on view through May 3.

About Koepnick

Koepnick was born in Dayton, studied at the Dayton Art Institute, and headed the sculpture department at the DAI school from 1936 to 1975. He had a close association with UD over the years when the DAI hosted UD’s art program. Koepnick received an honorary degree from the institution.

During World War II, Koepnick worked as a sculptor for the Aeromedical Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where he designed equipment for the Army Air Corps. He passed away in 1995 at age 88.

There have been some fine exhibits at the University of Dayton’s Roesch Library over the years but the current show on this popular sculptor takes it to another level.

“Our gallery has never looked like this before,” said Katy Kelly, communications and outreach librarian. “We’ve never had a professionally designed and installed exhibit before and this is the first time we’ve had a sculpture exhibit.”

Credit for the creative exhibition goes to local curators Steve Germann and Pamela Houk and to exhibit designer Amy Reichert, who came from Chicago to work on the show.

“One of my favorite things about Bob Koepnick is that he wasn’t at all the stereotype of an artist. He was a regular guy who did a lot of work for clients and was a good son, husband and father,” Germann said. “He wasn’t at all egotistical. His first job in 1932 was at the Dayton Art Institute teaching Saturday morning classes for children.”

The artistic process

From the moment you walk through the library doors and view the huge panorama of Koepnick’s studio, you know you’re in for a special treat.

“When we realized we had everything from sketches and scale models to clay studies, we decided to make the exhibit about the artistic process,” Reichert explained. “This exhibit is about opening people up to how a sculptor thinks and makes things.”

In addition to seeing a wide variety of Koepnick’s work — architectural reliefs and ecclesiastical sculptures, free-standing statues and busts — you’ll also have a chance to pay a visit to his studio with its actual tools and workbench. A scrim placed on the exhibit window duplicates the view Koepnick saw from his barn studio window as he looked out upon his 10 acres of land in Ridgeville near Lebanon.

When the curators visited John J. Koepnick, a sculptor who continues to work in his father’s studio, they commented on the old barn door filled with receipts, sketches, notes and photos.

John Koepnick offered to remove the door and transport it to the library for the exhibit.

“It’s my favorite thing in the exhibit. We fell in love with it because it’s so evocative,” Reichert said. “This is exactly the way we found it.”

Koepnick did most of his work by commission, and you’ll see from his letters that he was always willing to please his patrons — even if that meant adjusting a smile on a statue or adding more fabric to the Virgin Mary’s veil.

“In the same way he was open to various artistic styles, he was open to his clients,” Reichert said.

That doesn’t surprise Houk, who first met the sculptor when she was a teenager and took classes at the Dayton Art Institute school.

“He was a kind, generous and attentive teacher — and later friend — who made sure even his young part-time students understood the whole process of modeling and casting a figure from beginning to end,” she said.

Houk was responsible for the sections of the exhibit that describe Koepnick’s wide variety of styles and his artistic process. Working on this exhibition, she said, has given her a new appreciation for the range of Koepnick’s work — from his skill as a storyteller in his religious art commissions to his more adventurous secular work.

“The artists who influenced him were also wide ranging — from the anonymous creators of classical ancient sculpture and Gothic church figures to early 20th century European Expressionists and more avant garde mid-century Europeans like Alexander Archipenko and Alberto Giacometti,” she said.

You’ll see those influences dramatically illustrated in the exhibit.

Houk says over the the course of his career, Koepnick made many more significant works of public art than she realized. “Some of it was for parks, schools and public buildings but most of his major commissions came from churches and other religious organizations throughout the country,” she said.

John Koepnick said art was everywhere when he was growing up.

“We breathed it, it was in the air,” he said. “There’s something about the physicality of sculpture that my father found irresistible and I do too. We both liked working with real forces like gravity — and making our art stand up.”

One of the scale models on display indeed stands up — Koepnick’s statue of St. Michael the Archangel, commissioned by a Houston church, is 32 feet high. Cast in aluminum in 1965-1966, it had to be made in 52 pieces, then assembled at a local foundry.

“They were first going to ship it by train, but the wings were too wide for a flatbed railroad car so it was shipped by truck as a wide load from Ohio to Texas,” John Koepnick said. “It was wrapped in tarps and when the truck driver stopped at weigh stations and was asked what he was carrying, since he didn’t know the word for sculpture, he just said he was transporting an angel!”

In the entrance to the exhibit, you’ll see three Koepnick family busts — one of Koepnick’s wife, his mother and his nephew.

“He preferred if people sat for a sculpture, and they might sit for hours, but he also worked from photographs,” John Koepnick said. One example is the head of Max Rudolf, conductor for the Cincinnati Symphony.

John Koepnick said when his father couldn’t get his subjects to sit, he’d try to find another way to spend time with them and surreptitiously observe them for the sculpture.

“Maybe he’d pay a visit or attend a cocktail party with them,” he explained. “He wanted to get a feel for their personality.”

The Koepnick family has donated much of Robert Koepnick’s papers to the University of Dayton archives. The collection includes letters, photos, sketches and bills.

John Koepnick said if you make a mistake while painting, you may ruin the artwork.

“But if a sculpture is going the wrong way, you can just hit it with a hammer!” he said.