The Brunnier Art Museum will be hosting three new exhibits, “An

American Sculptor: Seymour Lipton,” “Abstraction in Iowa

Collections,” and “Christian Petersen and Lee Allen: After the Iowa

Project,” from August 28 to November 25.

“Everything from jazz to gallery walks to artist talks to art historian’s

programs are on hand this fall,” says Matthew DeLay, University

Museums curator of education.

“An American Sculptor: Seymour Lipton” highlights the art of an

abstract sculpture artist.

“Lipton is often compared and contrasted to Christian Petersen,”

DeLay says. “These two artists started out in a somewhat similar

way, but then developed entirely different styles.”

The two styles, Lipton’s expressionism and Petersen’s realism,

are opposites, he adds.

The abstract expressionist movement in the 1930s and 1940s

was nearly worldwide. What set Seymour Lipton’s work apart from

the rest of the movement was the evolution his work underwent

throughout various stages of his life, according to University

Museums Director Lynette Pohlman.

Many of Lipton’s earlier works were realistic and representational.

Although some of those same ideas continued through his later

work, he started leaning more toward abstraction later in life, she

says.

“From a technical point of view, he stylizes his sculptures and

makes them very simplified forms,” Pohlman says.

She gave the example of flight, a common theme in Lipton’s work,

to explain his style. The sculpture will produce the feeling of flight,

rather than physically portraying an actual bird in motion.

The second exhibit “Abstraction in Iowa Collections” includes

pieces from museums and private collections throughout the

state.

It will focus on artists like Lipton, who “used processes of

automatism and improvisation in the development of their works of

art,” according to Brunnier’s Web site.

Although the pieces in the exhibit are all from Iowa museums and

collections, the artists represented, such as Jimmy Ernst, James

Rosenquist and William DeKoonig, are internationally renown.

The final exhibit, “Christian Petersen and Lee Allen: After the Iowa

Project,” spotlights the work of both Petersen and painter Lee

Allen.

“Lee Allen continued painting landscape and agricultural themes,

as well as developing a career as a medical illustrator,” DeLay

says. “In spirit he is closely related to both Wood and Petersen.”

In addition to being an artist, Allen was also a scientist and helped

to invent lenses for glasses and microscopes, according to

Pohlman. This combination of art and science is evident in his

work.

Allen also helped paint the Parks Library murals, which were

designed by Iowa native Grant Wood. Out of 12 original mural

painters, Allen is one of two still living. He will be at Brunnier Sept.

16 at 2 p.m. to celebrate his 91st birthday, an event that is open to

the public.

Together the three new exhibits illustrate differences that were

occurring in the art world at the time of Petersen, Lee, Lipton and

their contemporaries.

“When you look in this gallery of art in the 1930s and 1940s, you

will see some comfortable, realistic images from Christian

Petersen, and then you’ll walk one gallery over and see

aggressive, abstract sculptures that are responding to the atomic

age,” Pohlman says.

But this is representational of what constantly happens in the art

world, she says. “In our world there are many things happening at

one time – not just abstraction, not just realism – and those are

played out in science and technology, as well as art.”

Despite the diversity of the artists, there is a sense of continuity

running through the exhibits.

“When you look at the whole collection you begin to see a

movement rather than individual people,” Pohlman explains.

“Visual artists, just like literary artists, look at each other’s work.

That’s what people can see when they come to see this group .

You’re going to see a cauldron of ideas.”

Brunnier’s hours are Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 4

p.m., Thursday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday

from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.