Inaugural Exhibition: Works from Columbia University Collections

Longstanding traditions of excellence in art and architecture at Columbia University will be celebrated Friday, April 4, 1986 with the dedication of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Fine Arts Center.

The new center was made possible by a gift of $3.5 million from Mr. Wallach, a graduate of Columbia College and the Columbia School of Law, and his wife. The new Schermerhorn Hall was designed by Susana Torre, who is associate professor of architecture at Columbia.

On view in the new Wallach Art Gallery, the centerpiece and focus of the new center, will be an inaugural exhibition of selections from Columbia’s collections. Included will be ancient Oriental treasures from China, Korea and Japan; American and European paintings, including portraits by John Singleton Copley and Rembrandt Peale and works by Boudin, Renoir and Furini, and drawings and designs from Columbia's famed Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, ranging from the Renaissance masters Piranesi and Bibiena to American architects Louis Henry Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright.

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE

The Schermerhorn renovation, completed at a cost of $6 million, entailed the rebuilding of the entrance lobby and part or all of five upper floors. All faculty and departmental offices and classrooms have been redone, and new spaces have been created for scholarly and public functions, greatly expanding the capabilities of the art history and archaeology department. The Wallach Gallery, occupying the entire west wing of one floor, will house exhibitions from public and private collections as well as from Columbia. Students will help plan and install them, and special symposia will be held in conjunction with them. The Howard McP. Davis Humanities Study Gallery, funded by gifts from former students of the esteemed Moore Collegiate Professor Emeritus of Art History, will provide a permanent area for the display of visual aids for the celebrated art humanities course that is part of the traditional core curriculum of Columbia College. The newly refurbished Frieda and Milton F. Rosenthal Auditorium, named in honor of the donors, will accommodate occasions for lectures by distinguished visiting scholars and members of the New York art world. The new Visual Resources Center, specially designed to facilitate teaching and research, combines Columbia's vast collections of 450,000 slides and 200,000 photographs of art works in a resource that is unique in America.

"Outstanding faculty and students have long made Columbia one of the nation's preeminent centers for the study of art: at last they have a superb facility worthy of them," President Sovern said of the new center. "For this we are especially indebted to Miriam and Ira D. Wallach, whose generosity and vision over the years have enabled us to maintain and enhance the quality of our programs and facilities."

One of Columbia's most active alumni, Mr. Wallach has made major contributions to create the Ira D. Wallach Professorship of World Order Studies in the School of International and Public Affairs, to rebuild and renovate an undergraduate residence hall, now Wallach Hall, and to acquire and install on campus a sculpture by Henry Moore titled "Three Way Piece: Points." Mr. Wallach is the chairman of the board of Gottesman & Go., the pulp and paper company, and of Central National Corp. He was graduated from the College in 1929 and from the Law School in 1931.

"This is an unprecedented opportunity for the Department of Art History and Archaeology; the effects of the Wallachs’ generosity will be felt by generations of students and faculty," said Professor Beck. "These inviting new facilities will also bring us into closer contact with the city and enable us to use the city's resources more effectively by encouraging us to create close relationships with the great museums of New York and with active art galleries, collectors and artists."

Susana Torre, associate professor in Columbia's Graduate school of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and from 1982 to 1985 head of the architecture program at Barnard College, designed the renovation in association with Wank Adams Slavin, architects and engineers. Discussing her vision for the renovation in a recent interview, Ms. Torre said: "One of my main purposes was to recover the dignity and formality of the original 1897 building and to interpret in a modern way its original order. I was interested in achieving a sympathetic dialogue with the McKim, Mead and White design."

In her redesign of the entrance and lobby of Schermerhorn, Ms. Torre reintroduced a monumental staircase, a feature of the original building that had been eliminated in earlier modernizations. In her scheme, honey-colored Italian marble and bronze railings and light fixtures add light and warmth to the entrance and provide a recurring motif throughout the renovation.

“The original stone used in the entrance was from a French quarry that had long since closed,” Ms. Torre said. “I needed to select something new but compatible, and the marble provides a luminous quality to the entrance and also differentiates it from the old.”