An artist's life is portrayed
through the eyes of history
The Gertrude Bass Warner collection includes slides
that depict the meeting of East and West in Shanghai
BY THOMAS MUNRO
FREELANCE REPORTER
The Knight Library Browsing
Room was filled with the muted col
ors of glass lantern slides Tliesday
night, as about 70 students, staff, fac
ulty and community members cele
“Uniting East and West: The Life and
Work of Gertrude Bass Warner,”
marked the opening of an exhibit at
the library of pieces from the Warner
collection.
“The exhibit represents the histori
cal recovery of an almost forgotten li
brary,” said James Fox, head of special
collections and University archives.
The exhibit includes rare books
and manuscripts, personal letters
and other ephemera, maps of Shinto
shrines (a particular interest of
Warner), a computer slide show of
37 glass lantern slides and early
plans for the art museum.
Cecilia “Ce” Rosenow, visiting as
sociate professor of literature at the
Clark Honors College, designed the
Drated the Hie and work of
Gertrude Bass Warner.
Warner, an amateur
scholar of Asian art and
culture, was instrumental
in the creation of the Jor
dan Schnitzer Museum of
Art and donated a vast li
brary of rare books, glass
slides and documentation
of her voyages in Asia to
the University libraries.
Tliesdav’s event, titled
exhibit. She is currently working on a
book about Warner. Rosenow
thanked the many people who have
contributed to the success of the ex
hibit in her opening comments, in
cluding students in the Honors Col
lege, describing “a campus-wide effort
served as the center
piece of a new art museum. She
spent most of 1904 through 1929 in
East Asia collecting art and docu
menting her explorations. Her pri
mary concern was to improve the
relationships between the United
States and East Asian nations
through cultural exchange.
Rosenow introduced Roxann
Prazniak, associate professor of his
tory at the Honors College, who de
livered a lecture on Warner’s 5,000
glass lantern slides. These hand
painted slides show a wide variety
of scenes in China, Japan and else
where. Prazniak said that while
Warner claimed to see the cultural
exchange she captured in a positive,
optimistic light, the choices she
made in producing her slides sug
gest a more complicated view of the
meeting of East and West.
The Warner slides were taken in a
period of profound, unsettling
change in China and Japan, said
Prazniak. During Warner’s time in
China, the imperial examination
system, a 2,000-year tradition, came
to an end, followed soon by the end
of the empire itself. Shanghai,
where many of her slides were cap
tured, was experiencing unprece
dented growth due to investments
by colonial powers. Japan was expe
riencing an accelerated version of
the industrial revolution.
Many of Warner’s slides portray
the sometimes confusing meeting of
East and West in Shanghai, a city
that had only recently emerged from
the Boxer Rebellion, a revolt against
British cultural and political prac
tices. In the slide titled “Rowing
Club,” for instance, a colonial row
ing club is off to the side of the pic
ture, while a traditional Chinese
junk sails straight toward the cam
era. When Warner shows a long row
of rickshaws, they are full of Euro
peans in suits and bowlers. Instead
of a tourist’s picture of a pagoda,
she snaps it as a steam train travels
in front of it.
But Warner maintained a positive
view of this mutual discovery, ac
cording to Prazniak.
“Warner saw the aesthetic plane
of everyday natural life as one on
which people of different cultures
could meet,” she said.
Thomas Munro is a freelance
reporter for the Emerald
to mount the exhibit.”
Warner moved to Eu
gene in 1921 to join her
son, a professor of law
at the University, after
the death of her hus
band, Murray, said
Rosenow. Her private art
collection, donated to
the University as the
Murray Warner Collec
tion of Oriental Art,
BETHERE
What: Uniting East and
West: The Life and Work of
Gertrude Bass Warner
Where: East and west
entryway corridors and
second floor, Special
Collections Exhibit area,
Knight Library
When: Until Jan. 16
Journalist discusses
possible Gaza Strip
'disengagement'
Elli Wohlgelenter, copy editor for the Israeli newspaper
Haaretz, talks about Israel after Nov. 2 elections
BY THOMAS MUNRO
FREELANCE REPORTER
The political intrigues of the Is
raeli Knesset are enormously com
plicated and cannot be affected
much by the results of the upcom
ing U.S. election, journalist Elli
Wohlgelernter said Wednesday
evening in a talk sponsored by the
Oregon Hillel.
Wohlgelernter is a copy editor for
Haaretz, a politically moderate daily
newspaper published in Tel Aviv, Is
rael. Professor of Communication
David Frank described Haaretz as
The New York Times of its country.
“I have great respect for that
newspaper,” Frank said. “It is prob
ably the best newspaper in Israel.”
Wohlgelernter’s talk was entitled,
“The Day after November 2nd: Still
Engaged to the Disengagement
Plan?” It focused on recent machi
nations within Israel’s Knesset, or
parliament. He tried to present all
sides of a complicated issue to the
largely pro-Israel audience of about
35.
“I’m not here to advocate a view.
I’m here to present issues,”
Wohlgelernter said.
Wohlgelernter described the new
policy that is splitting the Israeli
government. In what is seen as a
sudden turnaround, embattled
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a
member of the conservative Likud
party, has announced a unilateral
“disengagement” from the Gaza
Strip, an area that has been a major
spot of contention in the Palestinian
peace process. This disengagement
would mean the removal of thou
sands of Israeli settlers from their
Gaza homes.
Sharon’s action has led to a con
fusion of alliances. The more con
servative Zionist elements who
have historically been Sharon’s
most ardent supporters are strongly
opposed to disengagement from
Gaza. Israeli liberals, who have long
held Sharon in low regard, are
strongly in favor of this move. The
shifting alliances mean that the im
mediate future of the disengage
ment order and the Sharon govern
ment itself are matters of great
uncertainty, said Wohlgelernter.
Wohlgelernter emphasized that
he believes Sharon is completely
committed to the withdrawal and
will “go down in flames if it fails.”
He described Sharon as more of a
strategist than a hawk, and he ar
gued that this decision was a strate
gic one.
Professor Frank agreeed.
“I think he.is completely sincere,
JOURNALIST, page 12A
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