SDRotary - Getting Involved

May 16, 2001

This week's Bulletin was written by Tom Sayer.

THIS WEEK'S MEETING

Meeting off-site at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park, Colette dispensed with most of the usual formalities save for an invocation delivered by Lesley Knapp.

announcements

Ø The June Board Meeting will be Wednesday, June 13^th (rather than the usual Monday) with both the current Board and the 2001-02 Board being asked to attend.

Ø The Demotion Party will be on Wednesday evening, June 20^th this year at the San Diego Yacht Club. Our Club will be dark that Wednesday morning.

sgt-at-arms

Deferred for the museum tour.

this week’s PROGRAM

We were treated to a private tour of the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park, today. Headed by Courtney Comer (pictured here with Carol Jensen), the museum is the finest of its type in the country. The following article was taken from MoPA’s website which can be found at www.mopa.org.

Since its opening in 1983, the Museum of Photographic Arts has gained an international reputation for excellence through the presentation of exhibitions of the highest quality and lectures by visiting artists, curators, writers and historians.

Born of a group of local photographers and patrons who began planning in 1972, MoPA (known then as the Center for Photographic Arts) remained a museum without walls for nine years. In 1982 the City of San Diego donated a space for a permanent home-a 7,000-square-foot space in the unique Balboa Park cultural complex. The Museum was custom-designed by La Jolla architect David Raphael Singer with moveable walls and flexible lighting in the gallery to accommodate exhibitions of varying sizes as well as video presentations.

The appointment of nationally renowned curator/photographer Arthur Ollman as executive director brought visionary leadership and instant credibility to the fledgling museum. Ollman had been an eminent photographer in the Bay area and served a distinguished tenure as chairman of the board of San Francisco Cameraworks, a successful non-profit exhibition space. In his laudatory letter of recommendation for Mr. Ollman, Ansel Adams wrote "I do think that your institution would be both wise and lucky to have Arthur as its executive director."

The Museum of Photographic Arts officially opened its doors to the public on May 1, 1983 as one of the first museum facilities in the United States designed exclusively to collect and present the world's finest examples photographic art. The opening was marked with a gala event, a film presentation of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington with special guest Frank Capra, and the opening of the first exhibition of works by W. Eugene Smith and Bernard Schwartz.

The exhibition schedule offers approximately six shows each year. MoPA has displayed works from the entire history of the medium: daguerreotypes and albumen prints from the 19th century; pictorialism from the 1910s and 20s; master works from mid-20th century by such artists as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and André Kertész; and contemporary works and photojournalism by many of the best photographers working today.

MoPA has played a major role in putting San Diego on the cultural map. In addition to bringing important exhibitions from other cities and organizing shows for San Diego audiences, MoPA has produced seven exhibitions that have traveled to museums around the globe. The first of these was Arnold Newman: Five Decades, a retrospective of one of the best known portrait photographers in the world. The first tour included three years in the United States, three years in Europe and a third tour in Asia. Revelaciones: The Art of Manuel Alvarez Bravo, the first retrospective exhibition of the master of Mexican photography, opened at MoPA in 1990 and closed its U.S. tour in 1994. Other MoPA-organized exhibitions that have traveled nationally and internationally include: The Duane Michals Show (1991-1993), Camera as Weapon: Worker Photography Between the Wars (1992-1993) and Fata Morgana USA: The American Way of Life/Photomontages by Josep Renau(1992-1994). Los Vecinos/The Neighbors: Images and Discussion of Life on the U.S./Mexico Border opened in San Diego in 1989, and traveled extensively throughout Mexico in 1992.

In 1992, as leader of a consortium of three prominent museums of photography, (MoPA, The Friends of Photography, San Francisco and the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson) MoPA organized and managed a three-part exhibition series titled Points of Entry, an examination of issues related to immigration to the U.S. through the medium of photography. A three-volume set of catalogues and extensive educational materials were developed to accompany the exhibition series. In September, 1995, Points of Entry: A Nation of Strangers, Points of Entry: Reframing America and Points of Entry: Tracing Cultures opened at their respective organizing institutions. The series embarked on a national tour in 1996, with stops at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta. In 1998, a major retrospective of the work of Cuban-born artist Abelardo Morell debuted at MoPA before beginning a two-year national tour. Tour venues for Abelardo Morell and the Camera Eye include the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Saint Louis Art Museum, the Bayly Art Museum at the University of Virginia and others.

The Museum's permanent collection was richly enhanced in 1992 with a bequest from the estate of the late photographer and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Lou Stoumen. The gift included 178 photographs, 10,000 negatives and rights to his films, photographs and writings. An exhibition of his work was curated by Director Arthur Ollman and was on display in October of 1992 accompanied by a catalogue. The first Lou Stoumen Prize was awarded to American photographer Debbie Fleming Caffery in 1996.

After a one-year renovation and expansion project that quadupled the Museum's size, MoPA reopened March 4, 2000. The Museum's programs are greatly enhanced through additional galleries, a classroom, print-viewing room and a 25,000-volume library, as well as augmented archival facilities and support areas. In addition, the expansion includes a 238-seat theater, that houses MoPA's full-time cinema program and thereby fulfills the Museum's mandate of presenting the arts of still photography, video and film.

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