The Cress Gallery / University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Permanent Collection of Art contains approximately 1,000 works of art and design. A portion of the collection hangs in the offices and public spaces of the academic and administrative buildings on the campus of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Works of art not in circulation are maintained in archival storage by the staff of the Cress Gallery. Separate collections of art are also maintained on campus by the University’s John T. Lupton Library and by the UTC University Center. The Cress Gallery Permanent Collection of Art includes a large number of prints, portfolio editions, and limited edition artists’ books whose acquisition in the early 1980’s was made possible by the Ackermann Foundation. These original serigraph, intaglio, lithograph, aquatint, and offset press prints are the work of artists including Larry Rivers, John Piper, Robert Motherwell, Dieter Roth, John Turnbull, Elizabeth Frink, William Scott, Gordon House, Varda Chryssa, Piero Dorazio, Rudy Pozatti, Herbert Bayer, and others. Archived in the Permanent Collection is a selection of posters that formed the 1989 Cress Gallery exhibition Design Excellence (50 posters of the 1980’s) organized by Alan White, Head, Department of Art, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and curated by Gordon Salchow, Professor of Graphic Design, University of Cincinnati. Among the award winning international designers whose work is represented are Massimo Vignelli, Paul Rand, Ivan Chermayeff, Seymour Chwast, Milton Glaser, April Greiman, John Massey, Rick Valicenti, and Robert Jensen. The Permanent Collection also includes paintings, prints, photographs, drawings, posters, small sculptural works and functional vessels which have been purchased or donated to the University or are the work of alumni, faculty, and outstanding students of the Department of Art. Notable among these acquisitions are traditional Chinese ceramic tea ware, a gift from the artisans and people of Wuxi, China; illustrations and woodcut prints by Barry Moser, award winning Department of Art alumnus; photographs by Robin Hood, Pulitzer Prize winning Department of Art alumnus; photographs by Rosalind Soloman; commemorative medallions designed by Chester Martin, also a graduate of the Department of Art; a bronze bust of George Cress by sculptor Cesna Decosimo, donated to the University by the sculptor’s mother; a large collection of graphic design and illustration by Weimer Pursell, Head, Department of Art from 1948-1951, a gift of his children Anne Blair Pursell and Scott Pursell; and a collection of 150 original polaroids and gelatin silver prints, a gift of the Andy Warhol Foundation .

On the exterior of the Fine Arts Center at its main entrance on Vine Street stands Henry Moore’s Upright Motive No. 8 1955-1956, cast bronze, donated to the University by “citizens interested in the fine arts”.

At the northeast corner of the building near Oak Street is Victor Contreras’ monumental work The Hands of God, 1975, cast and fabricated bronze, donated to the University by McKee Baking, Collegedale, Tn.

At the Lansing Street Entrance to the University Center Sky Toucher, 1986, steel, gift of Ruth and William Holmberg, Jr.

|COLLECTION INQUIRIES|

Inquiries regarding work in the Department of Art / Cress Gallery of Art Permanent Collection of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga should be directed to the Curator of Galleries and Collections.





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