By CHARLYNE BERENS
Alumni News editor
Sometimes the content is overwhelming. Sometimes the technique is dominant.
Either way, the photographs will command the attention of visitors to NU’s Sheldon Gallery this winter.
George Tuck, the college’s photojournalism professor, says the 100 photographs in the show come from the Associated Press and other photo syndicates as well as from college alumni like Mike Theiler, Gary Kemper and Joel Sartore.
The show includes some famous prints: a South Vietnamese general executing a soldier; Marilyn Monroe, skirt blown high as she stands on an air vent; Hitler reviewing his troops; the “Big Three” leaders at Yalta. Other photos in the show are from local situations: a man being rescued from a grain elevator explosion, Cornhusker football, a prairie thunderstorm.
Tuck said the works on exhibit have been drawn from the college’s photo collection of about 500 images. Most of the photographs in the collection, housed at the Sheldon, have been donated to the college, Tuck said.
Dan Siedell, curator at the gallery, said the exhibit, which runs through Feb. 28, is a “coming out party” for the photo collection. The photos fill two of the three main exhibit rooms on the second floor of the gallery; the third room is hung with fine arts-based photos. Siedell said he thought the juxtaposition would provide an interesting theme as visitors explored the differences and similarities between the two kinds of photographs.
In conjunction with the show, a day-long photo seminar is planned for Saturday, Jan. 23, in the Sheldon Auditorium. Scheduled to make presentations at the seminar are Joel Sartore, Lincoln, photographer for National Geographic; Julia Dean, Los Angeles, a Broken Bow native who heads a documentary project about child labor issues world-wide; Mike Davis, another Nebraska native who’s been a picture editor for National Geographic and the Detroit Free Press and who was named Picture Editor of the Year for his work at the Albuquerque Tribune; and Hal Buell, former photo director of Associated Press, who will present a video/slide show about the history of AP pictures.
A panel discussion will allow the audience to ask questions of the speakers.
The seminar is free and will run from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The audience will be able to view the exhibition during breaks and after the presentations.
Siedell said the Sheldon has more than 5,000 photographs in its permanent collection — “pretty extensive for a university art museum.” He said working with the journalism college to enhance that collection was “just natural.”
Tuck said the college’s collection is one of only a few in the United States that is photojournalism-based and housed in a highly respected art museum. He said the reason for that arrangement is that both Siedell and George Neubert, museum director, appreciate photographs as an art form.
“We’re fortunate in having two people at Sheldon with a passion for photography,” Tuck said.