Post cold war prints in Tweed exhibit

By: Holly Nelson

Posted: 1/27/10

The Tweed Museum of Art's newest exhibit, "The Atomic Edge: Design in Print Imagery," provides a window into the post World War II world of the 1940s to 1960s that dealt with the terrible angst of the dropping of the first atomic bombs and fear of Russian response, a change in aesthetic perspective across all dimensions of popular culture, in addition to experimentation in printmaking, which led to its shift as a high art form rather than a technique used to recreate art.

The ending of the war and dropping of the atomic bombs in 1945 affected culture and art by influencing the way forms were represented. In addition to this sudden change in artistic perspective, there was a dramatic shift in artistic leaders as the United States began to produce more art than Europe for the first time in history.

In 1944, the omnibus G.I. Bill stated that World War II veterans would be provided with college or vocational education, along with unemployment compensation for up to one year. This allowed for further artistic experimentation, which led to new techniques in printmaking, a type of art that consists of the production and multiplication of works on fabric, plastic, paper, metal or wood.

The exhibit, "The Atomic Edge," is filled with prints created during the post-war era that demonstrate the overall anxiety many Americans felt at the time. Many of the pieces have an atomic flare to them as most of them contain geometric and almost machine-like shapes that posess nuclear qualities.

Some of the work displayed in the exhibit is a part of the artist visitation program that took place here in Duluth from 1950 into the late 1960s. This program allowed artists, many of whom were from New York, to stay in Duluth for the summer and teach art seminars as a way to share ideas.

Bill Shipley, one of the Tweed Museum of Art's current volunteer tour guides, was a UMD student during the 1960s and studied under many of these artists from the program. He saw drastic changes in artistic representations during the nation-wide panic over potential bomb threats.

"It was like suddenly seeing the results of invisible physics and the huge idea that the invisible world really mattered," Shipley said.

The Atomic Edge mainly consists of pieces of work donated from the Kiser Print Collection by former UMD Art Professor Jesse Dorrance Kiser. Kiser, a printmaking professor, collected the pieces as a way to educate his students on the several unique techniques used to create prints.

The exhibit is presented with assistance from the Daniel Kasle Print Fund thanks to the contributions from Rob Leff, a founder of the Kasle fund, in addition to many of the pieces Leff loaned to the museum for the current exhibit.

Organized by the Tweed Museum's second year interns, Michael Cason, Marla Peterson, Adam Rosenthal and Erica Whalen, "The Atomic Edge" proves to be an explosive exhibit full of windows to post WWII American history.