New University
vice president
selected Tuesday
See page 3
Oregon daily
emerald
Wednesday, May 18, 1983
Eugene, Oregon
Volume 84, Number 156
Art museum delivers slice of Orient
By Melissa Martin
Of ttw EmarakJ
When a 17th-century
Chinese emperor ordered his
artists to carve a jade tower to
guard his Kingdom, he didn't
Know it would become the
world's largest jade worK of its
Kind and a prized University art
museum display.
Museum officials balK at
revealing the value of the
sculpture given to the Univer
sity by a New YorKer in 1966
after a feud with his aima
mater — Harvard University.
The miniature green
Buddha-studded tower is one
of many museum pieces
reflecting the founder's wish
that “America looK to the
Orient instead of bacK to
Europe.”
Since the doors opened in
1933 to the 50th anniversary
celebration planned for Satur
day, the museum’s oriental
theme remains.
Not all the collections were
given to the museum. Some
were cleverly acquired, liKe
the replica of a Cambodian
temple wall.
Armed with a suitcase of
paper dolls, museum founder
Gertrude Warner bartered for
room and board in the Cambo
dian plantations where she
was traveling to collect art
pieces.
Warner liKed the Cambodian
temple so much she had one
of the carved walls duplicated
for the University’s collec
tion.
LiKe the original, the
museum piece depicts
emperors and generals under
umbrellas, a sign of impor
tance in that society.
“Paper dolls are responsible
for our having this,” says
museum tour guide Margaret
Byrne.
LiKe an ancient Chinese
Jade tower,
totem pole
on display
closet, a glass showcase
boasts the court robes of
royalty from the Ch’ing
Dynasty.
The robes, which were com
mon Chinese attire, have long
“horse-hoof” sleeves to pro
tect hands from harsh weather
and from revealing a
“workman” status. Slits in the
Photo by Bob Baker
Few student realize the courtyard in the University art museum
even exists, says tour guide Margaret Byrne.
coat tails were a necessity
because the Chinese were
horsemen.
Next to the highly envied
Manchu court and peasant
robe exhibit, the same silk
tapestry that decorated a
Ch’ing dynasty empresses’
bedroom graces the museum
walls.
The tapestry tells a story of
Chinese customs and sym
bols. Renderings of Phoenix
birds are reserved exclusively
for the empress while the five
toed dragon, along with the
color yellow, is reserved for
the emperor.
When oriental artists were
not busy with a large project
such as the handcrafted jade
and glass pieces or the thread
ed tapestries, they often
created tiny, intricate wood
carvings.
“Time meant nothing to the
Oriental artists,” Byrne says.
Like the monkey looking
through a magnifying glass at
a lady bug, the figurines
demonstrate great detail.
One carving represents a
Chinese legend of a tea kettle
that turned into a badger when
it was put on the fire.
When Warner donated her
3,000-piece Chinese art collec
tion in hopes of furthering
American and Orient relations,
the University kept the objects
in Gerlinger Hall, which was a
womens’ hall at the time.
Only one-fifth of the
museum's collection is ex
hibited at once. The rest is
“down in the basement with
the steampipes," crammed in
a vault, Byrne says.
The museum’s facade is
windowless to protect the ex
hibits’ fibers, fabrics, dyes and
watercolors (jrom the light and
humidity.
In addition to the building’s
unfriendly face, many
students don’t realize the
museum is available, Byrne
says, and Eugene citizens
think it is strictly for students.
But the museum preserves
more than history.
The region’s best artists
display their work in the Con
temporary Northwest Gallery
on the first floor. One display
is the totem pole fashioned
from thousands of jigsaw-cut
wood pieces.
Somebody discovered the
carvings by deaf-mute Russell
Childers wasting away in a
Portland institution.
Now displayed in the
Northwest gallery, Childers’
carvings re-create the artist’s
childhood scenes.
Hidden courtyard boasts pool, fish, bust
By Sean Meyers
Of ttw Emarald
Whoever said teaching doesn't pay
hasn't seen the monument dedicated
to former University Pres. Prince Lu
cien Campbell.
In fact, few people of any profession
have seen the courtyard, just a few
steps away from the daily travel routes
of most University students.
The courtyard is housed in an appen
dage of the University art museum.
From the outside, it looks a little more
like an architectural afterthought than
what it is inside — one of the most lux
urious, pleasant and Ignored
2,000-square-foot tracts in Eugene.
“Oh, it looks like Europe!” observed
a member of the Western Building Sup
ply Association, which toured the art
museum recently. Her reaction was
typical.
“We usually save the courtyard for
the last part of the tour,” says long
But students don’t know it exists
time museum guide Margaret Byrne.
“If we don’t, we can’t get the children
to leave.”
The courtyard was dedicated to
Campbell, who died of cancer in 1925,
because “he was a very respected
man,” Byrne says.
Enshrined beneath a glittering,
Byzantine-style dome, Campbell’s bust
holds court over the other artwork in
the plaza. A sage Campbellian quote is
chiseled into the walls.
The bust is the work of noted artist
Phinminster Procter, who also was
responsible for the Indian maiden and
fawn statue standing in the reflecting
pool.
Procter spent several days with
fawns in an enclosed area so he could
create an anatomically correct
reproduction. There is no information
on what Procter’s homework was for
the naked maiden.
The statue had to be lowered into
the pool over the courtyard wall
because it wouldn’t fit through the
doors.
The monument was designed “with
the things that were important to
Campbell in mind,” says Byrne.
Accordingly, the stone pillars sur
rounding the pool contain carvings of
animals and plants native to Oregon.
The pool is stocked with Japanese
carp, which symbolize courage and
determination to the Japanese, like
salmon to some Americans. Azaleas
and sculptured shrubbery frame the
pool, while ivy climbs the nearby walls.
Oregon artists designed some of the
courtyard artwork, including a clay
sculture by noted potter Betty Feves of
Pendleton.
The arena is a soothing and accessi
ble spot for students to take respite
from the everyday world. But few take
the time to visit.
"I was talking to one third-year stu
dent the other day, and it was his first
visit,” says one frustrated museum
employee. "Most of the students don’t
even know we exist.”
Entrance to the museum and court
yard is free. The museum also is free
of campus administration.
“This doesn’t belong to the Universi
ty,” Byrne says. “It belongs to the
students, the people of Oregon. They
raised the money for it."
Originally, the museum’s founder,
Gertrude Warner, was against
establishing the courtyard because
she didn’t think it would live up to the
rest of the museum’s treasures.
“I always wanted to say ‘Mrs.
Warner, wherever you are,’ ” Byme
says, “ ‘look what we’ve got now.’ ”