Athens, Ga. – The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia has received the College Art Association’s Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Smaller Museums, Libraries, Collections and Exhibitions for its exhibition catalog “Cercle et Carré and the International Spirit of Abstract Art.”
The association will recognize the honorees formally at the convocation of its 103rd annual conference, in New York, Feb. 11. The 2015 annual conference-presenting scholarly sessions, panel discussions, career-development workshops, a book and trade fair and more-is the largest gathering of artists, scholars, students and arts professionals in the U.S.
Lynn Boland, the museum’s Pierre Daura Curator of European Art, who organized the exhibition and served as the project leader on the catalog as well as writing its primary essay, will attend the conference and accept the award. Both the exhibition and the catalog focused on Cercle et Carré (“Circle and Square”), an international group of abstract artists organized by Pierre Daura, Michel Seuphor and Joaquín Torres-García in 1929.
“It has been a tremendous honor to see this project to completion, realized after almost a decade of effort and support by our family of staff and supporters,” Boland said. “We are especially grateful to Martha Daura and her late husband Thomas Mapp, without whom a wealth of material elucidating this important movement may have been left unknown to scholars.”
The catalog includes essays by Filip Lipinski, Catherine Dossin and the museum’s associate curator of European art, Laura Valeri; English translations of the Cercle et Carré journal; and an extensive catalog section illustrated with color plates and historic photographs.
The museum has applied for the Barr Award, which recognizes exhibition catalogs, many times previously, but this is the first time it has received it. “Cercle et Carré” has also received the 2014 Certificate of Commendation from the Southeastern Museums Conference, an award celebrating excellence in research, design, development, educational value and effectiveness in museum exhibitions; an honorable mention for exhibition catalog design from the American Alliance of Museums; and was a category finalist in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards and the Foreword Reviews’ IndieFab Book of the Year Awards.
Founded in 1911, the College Art Association includes among its members those who by vocation or avocation are concerned about and/or committed to the practice of art, teaching and research of and about the visual arts and humanities. Over 12,000 artists, art historians, scholars, curators, critics, collectors, educators, publishers and other professionals in the visual arts belong as individual members. Another 2,000 departments of art and art history in colleges and universities, art schools, museums, libraries and professional and commercial organizations hold institutional memberships.
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 the appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. The Georgia Council for the Arts also receives support from its partner agency, the National Endowment for the Arts. Individuals, foundations and corporations provide additional museum support through their gifts to 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 St., University of Georgia, Athens, Ga. 30602-6719. For more information, including hours, see http://www.georgiamuseum.org or call 706-542-4662.
