Albion College Remembers a Michigan Original

Solo, oil on board, 1962.

September 4-29, 2007

Bobbitt Visual Arts Center
Albion College
Albion, Michigan

In September, Great Lakes area art lovers will once again be able to enjoy in person the extraordinary paintings of Philip Curtis, ’30, in an Albion College exhibition entitled Sound and Silence. Curtis, who passed away in 2000, is highly regarded among 20th-century American painters. His main body of work is on permanent display in a special wing at the Phoenix Art Museum.

A Unique Exhibit Experience Synchronizes Art, Affection and Scholarship

Sound and Silence is in part an outgrowth of a unique educational activity developed by art history professor Bille Wickre for her fall 2006 American Surrealism seminar.

The students compiled a richly detailed portrait of Curtis’ life and work through their access to a number of unique resources, beginning with Albion College’s substantial Curtis collection and decades-long collection of correspondence between Curtis and Albion classmate Russell Babcock. Students were further given unprecedented access to the Curtis family’s own extensive collection of books, newspapers, videotapes and magazine articles, The students studied digital images of works held in other locations, and made a trip to see Curtis’ Cattle Track studio and the Curtis collection held at the Phoenix Museum of Art.

This scholarly background enabled the students to serve as knowledgeable and passionate assistants in selecting and curating Sound and Silence. Students also wrote numerous essays for the accompanying catalogue.

“This seminar was an opportunity that is rarely offered, even to graduate students outside of a specialized museum practice program,” Wickre commented. “One of them stated that she felt like she was making art history, not just studying it. Indeed, we were.”

Co-sponsors of the Sound and Silence exhibition include: The Philip C. Curtis Charitable Trust for the Encouragement of Art, Cattle Track Art and Preservation, The Sandra S. Kempner Trust, and The Wanda and Russell Babcock Foundation.

More Exhibition Coverage

To read more about the exhibition and catalogue, visit the Io Triumphe! feature story: Philip C. Curtis, ’30: Sound and Silence