Athens, Ga. – The Georgia Museum of Art announces the Kress Project, a two-year initiative celebrating the 50th anniversary of the museum’s Samuel H. Kress Study Collection.
The Kress Project is soliciting responses to the 12 Italian Renaissance paintings in the museum’s Kress Collection through early 2012. Submissions may include a wide variety of forms, such as academic essays, visual art, choreography, fashion design or even a recipe inspired by a work in the collection.
GMOA encourages all ages and education levels to participate in the Kress project, and is soliciting entries from both within the United States and internationally. There is no fee to submit a response. The deadline for submissions is Feb. 1 and should be submitted via www.georgiamuseum.org/kressproject. The GMOA website will post entries throughout the year, and judges will select 24 winners. Each winner will receive a $500 prize and have his or her work published in a multimedia book.
The primary goal of the Kress Project is to promote the study and response to these objects by the public at large and explore new ways to interpret the collection. The project also will be among GMOA’s most prominent efforts to enlarge and diversify the museum’s audience during its reopening year.
“We are excited at the opportunity to demonstrate the continued relevance of these paintings to a contemporary audience,” said Lynn Boland, GMOA Pierre Daura Curator of European Art. “We hope the array of different responses will surpass our imaginative limits of what is possible.”
Other aspects of the Kress Project include a family guide to the Kress Collection, available at no charge in the gallery, and an upcoming Family Day on Saturday, July 16. Relevant films, a lecture, a Senior Citizens Outreach program, and a public and K-12 teaching packet also are forthcoming. An audio tour of the Kress Collection will be available this fall for download from the Kress Project website and will be accessible via smartphone while in the museum or on iPods available for checkout in the museum. The project also incorporates the museum’s biennial Trecento Symposium on early Italian art, which honors the memory of the late art historian Andrew Ladis and will be held in the fall of 2012.
The project commemorates the gift of the paintings in 1961 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Since its arrival in Athens and especially since the early 1990s, the Kress Study Collection has been the key motivation for GMOA’s research in early Italian art, including its most recent publication on the subject, the Corpus of Early Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections: The South.
Today, the Kress Gallery prominently features 12 Italian paintings from the Trecento and Baroque periods, as well as drawings from the Giuliano Ceseri collection and paintings, sculpture and period furniture from the High Museum of Art’s Kress Collection, all on extended loan to GMOA.
The Kress Foundation was founded in 1929 by Samuel H. Kress as a part of his own initiative to distribute his collection of more than 3,000 works of art to museums across the nation. The Kress Foundation strives to provide greater access to works in the collection outside of major urban centers. The foundation is a major sponsor of the Kress Project.
For details on how to submit entries, images of paintings and more information about the project, visit www.georgiamuseum.org/kressproject.
Museum Information
Partial support for the exhibitions and programs at the Georgia Museum of Art is provided by the Georgia Council for the Arts through appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. The council is a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Individuals, foundations and corporations provide additional museum support through their gifts to the Arch Foundation and the University of Georgia Foundation. The Georgia Museum of Art is located in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on the East Campus of the University of Georgia. The address is 90 Carlton Street, University of Georgia, Athens, Ga. 30602-6719. For more information, including hours, see www.georgiamuseum.org or call 706/542-GMOA (4662).