The display is open 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. weekdays, at the University of Illinois Press, 1325 S. Oak St. in Champaign.  There will be a special reception with light refreshments on Friday, April 5, from 3:00-5:00 p.m.   All viewings, and the reception, are free and open to the public.

Featured in this year’s show are two covers designed for University of Illinois Press books: Sonic Persuasion: Reading Sound in the Recorded Age (author Greg Goodale) and From Jim Crow to Jay-Z: Race, Rap, and the Performance of Masculinity (author Miles White).

A high quality catalog shows each entry in full color with typographic, paper, printing, and binding information, along with designers’ and judges’ comments.  A limited number of catalog copies will be available for free.

Chicago Tribune: “Unlike the Harlem Renaissance, from about 1919 to the mid-1930s, the Chicago movement didn’t have as its face such well-known intellectuals as W.E.B. Du Bois. Chicago artists didn’t have relatively large numbers of wealthy white patrons who helped to support their art. In addition, Chicago, unlike New York, wasn’t the publishing mecca of the country, so artists and their work weren’t as readily introduced to a national audience.

But Chicago was a mecca in other ways.”

Q:  Larry, you are a graduate of the University of Illinois.  How do you think that being an alumnus influenced your selection of photographs for the book?

Larry:  Having been an alum and a townie for over 30 years I had an understanding of the emotions swirling around an image beyond just the composition itself.  For instance, the undergraduate library, I wanted to photograph it at night because that is when it is populated.  I remember the long nights studying there, and meeting my friends.  I got my degree in architecture so of course I wanted to show buildings associated with that, and the Ricker Library. I’ve always admired the mosaic. 

Q:  Alaina, your previous book Barns of Illinois had very personal stories attached to each building in the book.  How was writing the text for Illini Loyalty different than Barns of Illinois?
 
Alaina:  I really enjoyed the process of research and writing for both books.  For Barns of Illinois I spent a lot of time talking with people, learning the stories behind their family barns and often during the conversation, the main point I wanted to highlight in the book would be clear.  But for Illini Loyalty it was a like a treasure hunt. In addition to talking with people about campus, we’d research at the library and look online to find as much information about the UI buildings and history and stories as possible.  In a way the writing for Illini Loyalty was harder than for Barns of Illinois because it has many more historical facts that needed to be accurate. 

Larry and Alaina Kanfer - Copyright Larry Kanfer

Q:  When assembling the images did you use some photographs that you already had in your portfolio or did you shoot all new material?

Larry:  There are some images that I always wanted to include in a book, and those fit perfectly.  The rest I created specifically for this project.  For instance, I had a beautiful photograph of Harker Hall in the snow that I always wanted to show, and it turned out to be a great layout together with a photograph of Kenny Gym in spring in a section about Nathan Ricker, who designed them both.  On the other hand,  I really wanted to convey the world-class nature of the Electrical Engineering program at UI, and none of the photographs of Everitt Lab I had were as stunning as the department itself is.  For the book project I was able photograph the interior of Everitt that I feel does justice to the department. 

Q:  The Press is located near the football arena, Memorial Stadium.  I see this grand structure every day on my way to work and have started taking it for granted.  Given that you live in Champaign, was it difficult for you to view the campus with fresh eyes when you were shooting for Illini Loyalty?

Larry:  I understand what you mean about taking what we see for granted, and I must admit that I sometimes do that myself.  But, once I started working on this book project, it became more about communicating what I know and love about the University of Illinois to others, than about seeing the beauty for the first time for me.

Q:  Do you have a favorite building on campus?

Larry:  I’d love to say the architecture building but in fact it is Altgeld Hall.  The rich history of Altgeld with its many different facets, the visual textures, the bells, the chimemaster, the detailed math library, the ceiling,  the mosaics,  the light fixtures,  the architecture and materials of the exterior of the building, I could just go on and on.  (I think I just did).

Alaina:  For me it is about the feeling I get being inside a building.  I absolutely love being inside Altgeld Hall.  It is a beautiful building with such a long history, a richly detailed library and it excites me that there are math journals dating back to the 1700s.  I also love stepping into the Seibold center for computer science becasue it feels like all my science fiction fantasies from my childhood coming true.  But then my favorite experience is to be inside the Illini Union, where we got married.

Altgeld Hall (C) Larry Kanfer

Q:  Do you have a favorite image from the book?

Larry:  I’m afraid I’ll have a different answer on any day you ask me this question.  Today, I like the photograph of the movies on the quad because I think it shows the excitement and energy of life on the University of Illinois Campus, and you can imagine what it felt like when the sprinkler system went off during the first Quad movie – Jaws.  It brings me back to my wonderful life as a student at the University of Illinois. 

Alaina:  Hmmm.  That is a hard one because each image was selected to show something particular about the campus.   I love the energy on Quad Day, I love the moodiness of the arboretum image.  But I guess my favorite would have to be the Alma Mater on the last page of the book.  Larry shows her from behind, a view we don’t often pay attention to.  And it is accompanied with the most meaningful words in the book:  To those of the past, we happy children of the future send our gratitude.

Q:  I have seen some of these photos as original photographs for sale at your gallery.  Is there an obvious public favorite so far?

Alaina: There is such a wide range of response.  People love the aerial images, and photographs of the icons, but they are also are thrilled to see their individual units represented artfully.

Q:  What project are you working on now?

Larry:  We are putting finishing touches on our Chicago book project with the University of Illinois Press.  This is exciting.  And right now I am working with photographer Karyl Wackerlin to create a visual accompaniment to the Champaign-Urbana Symphony’s upcoming performance of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.  It will be a moving evening on February 24, 2012 at Krannert!

The book traces Hoffman’s sculptures from their their 1933 debut and nearly four decades at the Field Museum to numerous reuses, repackagings, reproductions, and publications that reached across the world.

“A provocative new study. . . . Kinkel shows how the images contributed to a contentious and mutating discourse on race through the end of the 20th century.”-Sue Taylor, Art in America

 When Howard Pyle began training graphic artists at Drexel Institute in Philadelphia in 1894, he urged students to incorporate accuracy and drama within their pictures.  Though employed as an instructor of graphic design, Pyle insisted that his students read current literature and study anatomy. During classes, Pyle painted beside his students, explaining his methods as he painted.  He emphasized that he was training great American artists for contemporary audiences, and that his students needed to become more than mere technicians.  For Pyle, painting American history authentically within dramatic scenes was essential, and he believed good teaching should inspire students rather than emphasize necessary technical skills. He fostered both collaboration and competition within his classes. Education, to Pyle, could both foster aesthetics and facilitate employment opportunities.

Anthony Drexel founded Drexel Institute so that working class men and women could gain an education; he wanted them to attend lectures and explore the world around them.  So did Pyle.  Both believed that success included “bookish learning.”  Drexel felt that all students should be allowed in classes, but in the end Pyle knew he could only teach a few students who would devote all of their time to their education.  He also wanted them to understand and participate in the world around them, to think creatively about contemporary issues and consider how to influence and change the social fabric of their society.  Pyle talked about his curriculum with his students and with the press, always stressing the future of American art.  His students loved him, and arguably they became more famous in the end than him.  Included in the women he trained were the “Red Rose Girls” Jessie Willcox Smith, Violet Oakley and Elizabeth Shippen Green.  His most famous male student was N. C. Wyeth, but he also trained half of the U.S. government’s official World War I combat artists.  Several of his students taught art in small classes that applied many of his principles. His spurning of technical dogma in his teaching best explains his success as a mentor for the arts.

If we dismiss arguments that master teachers best create effective learning environments and that tests alone cannot evaluate the success of a student, we, in effect, endorse the canonization of education and discourage the emergence of informed students who value individual thinking.  Learning to listen, question, and explore electronic information — and materials in school and public libraries — happens best when master teachers are engaged within the curriculum’s design.  If North America fails today’s children, it is because legislators have a “one-size-fits-all” philosophy based on “test scores” and “teaching marketable skills.”

*****

Jill P. May and Robert E. May are professors at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.  They are co-authors of the just-published Howard Pyle: Imagining an American School of Art  (University of Illinois Press, 2011).