Chico Museum to Showcase Prints from the Janet Turner Collection

March 4, 2009

From the bizarre to the beautiful, the realistic to the abstract, The Janet Turner Print Museum’s exhibit “BARE: Women’s Images in Print” will be an exercise in contrasts and a provocative look at the female form through fashion and portraiture.  

Presented March 4-April 5, 2009 in the Janet Turner Print Museum at the CSU, Chico Meriam Library, BARE spans the 19th through 21st centuries primarily and includes works by internationally acclaimed artists Picasso, Bellows, Watteau, and Gourleau.

CSU, Chico art students Amanda Stewart and Kristen Barrera co-curated BARE under the direction of Turner Curator Catherine Sullivan.  

“We selected prints we believe reflect society’s opinion of women — our relationships, our bodies, and the politics of our beauty and our lives,” said Barrera.

Both she and Stewart are former interns for The Turner and have completed course work in gender and multicultural studies. Appropriately, BARE coincides with Women’s History Month.

Sullivan added the exhibit is international in scope in its examination of women in various roles and perceptions.  

“Some of the images are very cutting edge and controversial. The goal is to give insight as to how different cultures and eras perceive women. The exhibit is instructive, perceptive, and thought-provoking.”

BARE is a contrast to the exhibit of exquisitely realistic prints of the American artist and icon Winslow Homer – the exhibit that launched The Turner in its new home in Chico State’s Meriam Library last month.

“We have such a rich collection of prints from which to choose — 3,000 fine art prints spanning six centuries from 40 countries around the world,” noted Turner Board of Director’s Chair Barbara Morris. “The contrast between the tamer more bucolic nature of the Homer exhibit and the edgier, more jarring images in BARE exemplifies the depth and breadth of the collection.”

As an added bonus, a newly-purchased print, “The Awakening of the Servant” by the internationally acclaimed Argentine artist Alicia Candiani, will be on display and added to the permanent print collection in the name of the Avenue 9 Gallery, this year’s recipient of the annual Turner Prize for Excellence in Visual Art.

Gallery hours for the Turner are 11 a.m.- 4 p.m. weekdays. Additional prints in this exhibition will also be displayed in the Ayres Hall first floor display cases.