“Memento: Selected Works from the Elwood Collections” will be on display Sept. 18–June 29 in the Creighton Gallery in WSU’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.
A reception and talk with New York based collector Sean Elwood will be held 4:30–6:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 20, in the gallery.
“Memento: Selected Works form the Elwood Collections” is a comprehensive look at one of the most prized collections of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.
Elwood earned his bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts at WSU and Master’s Degree in Visual Arts at Hunter College, New York. He began collecting in 1968, not long after his graduation, and he began donating works to the museum in 1987. The collection grew to more than 300 objects, including modern and contemporary photography, drawings, video, sculpture and cultural ephemera. It was then divided into three separate collections, renamed the Elwood Collections.
The three collections, each honoring family members, include:
-
The Karen E. Hardin & John R. Elwood Collection
- Named for his parents who are both esteemed former WSU faculty members
- Includes work by artists from outside the State of Washington
-
The Shannon Strother Elwood Collection
- Named for Elwood and Puffer’s daughter
- Features artists living in the state of Washington
-
The Yvonne Puffer Collection of Visual Culture
- Named for Puffer
- Includes objects, ephemera and resource materials
Our common usage the word memento is a souvenir, an object that serves to remind use of a person or a past event. However, one of the earliest meanings of the word was “something that serves to warn.” The Momento exhibition, organized thematically, reflects on both of these meanings.
Funding provided by Sean Elwood & Yvonne Puffer, Luigi Gastaldo & Flora Brevette Rose Endowment, Samuel H. & Patricia W. Smith Arts Endowment Fund, John Mathew Friel Memorial Arts Lectureship, and Members of the Museum of Art.
For more information, see the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU website.
