Current Features

Collecting great works of art on a professor’s salary may sound like a fairy tale. But Ernst Pulgram, professor of romance and classical linguistics at the University of Michigan from 1948 until his retirement in 1986, did just that, acquiring works by some of the most currently sought after artists of the twentieth-century. Together with his wife Frances McSparran, UM associate professor and chief editor of the Middle English Compendium, Pulgram built one of the most personal and exhilarating collections of Austrian and German Expressionist art to be found in private hands. Before his death in 2005, Professor Pulgram shared his longtime wish for this remarkable group of more than 40 drawings, paintings on paper, and several prints to remain at Michigan, and the Museum of Art is honored to announce this extraordinary donation by an extraordinary couple. ...continued

When construction began on the Museum of Art’s expansion and restoration project in the fall of 2006, no one could have predicted exactly how the process would unfold. Museums, with their exacting climate and security needs, are by definition more complex facilities to bring to life than office buildings or schools. Even though Allied Works Architecture of Portland, Oregon, recently completed the Seattle Art Museum and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and the project’s general contractor, Skanska, is seasoned in the art of building museums, each project, site, and design brings with it unique challenges and discoveries. ...continued

As part of a unique recycling initiative, wood felled at the construction site of UMMA’s $41.9 million landmark expansion and restoration project in the fall of 2006 is now being transformed into extraordinary works of art.

Although twenty-six trees were removed from the site to provide for the addition of the Museum’s new Frankel Wing, the beauty of each will live on forever in the form of nearly 1,000 objects of art to be created by eighty master woodturners from Michigan and around the country. Each woodturner will make pieces in his or her own signature style. ...continued

With the goal of transforming the public environment of its Ann Arbor campus, and integrating the visual arts more fully with its educational and research mission, the University of Michigan has for the first time established a President’s Advisory Committee on Public Art. The standing committee, appointed by U-M President Mary Sue Coleman, is composed of faculty, administrators, and staff across campus with a wide range of expertise and perspectives ...continued