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Poetter Hall was purchased by the SCAD founders in March 1979. Classes began in September of that year.  
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Class in the Spotlight

SCAD-Atlanta students re-create artistic tradition
Louvre installation
Photo by Dane Sponberg

By Monique Bos
Published: Friday, November 2, 2007
 
One way artists traditionally have learned the techniques of their craft is by copying the work of masters. Savannah College of Art and Design-Atlanta students had the opportunity to do exactly that during summer quarter — thanks to a partnership between the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Through the three-year partnership, a series of “Louvre Atlanta” exhibitions are bringing work from the French museum to the High, providing visitors and students with the chance to view pieces they normally only could see in Paris.

And a partnership between SCAD-Atlanta and the High Museum provided students in the painting course Human Image and Metaphor with a unique opportunity to closely study some of the paintings.

“We will be copying and imitating some of the paintings there from the Louvre,” explained professor Chin-cheng Hung at the beginning of the project. “We’re trying to recreate scenes of how the Impressionists would copy work inside the Louvre during the 19th century.”

The students copied Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s “The Young Beggar Boy” (ca. 1650), working primarily on Mondays when the museum was closed to the public. They also had studio space on the premises.

“They can bring the pieces they’re working on into the gallery and compare them to the original paintings’ texture and colors,” explained Hung. “On Mondays, when the museum is closed, they can get in and draw, and that’s kind of exciting.”

Participating students were Cynthia Taylor, Lindsay Woodward, Marcia Dietz, Marilyn Chen, Anna Whitson, Mishele Lesser, Margaret Keller Aubrey and Alli Ferrara.

Recreating the paintings — although a valuable learning experience — wasn’t just an academic exercise, however. The students were preparing for a fall installation at the museum, which is on display through Jan. 13, 2008. Their canvases are exhibited in a vignette that also includes a photographic mural showing a 19th-century artist copying “The Young Beggar Boy.”

Hung, who works primarily in pastel and draws his inspiration from French Rococo paintings, said translating oil paintings into a pastel format — the students’ assignment — usually works well. Pastels can replicate the textures and colors of oils, but dry much more quickly, so artists don’t have to wait until one layer is dry to apply another, he explained.

The installation was unveiled as part of an event celebrating two new Louvre Atlanta exhibitions, “The Louvre and the Ancient World” and “The Eye of Josephine,” both of which opened Oct. 16.
 

 
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