Johnson Museum displays major U.S. collection of surrealist drawings

Watercolor in the Drukier Collection: Untitled, 1937, Roberto Matta. Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art

By Linda Myers

A major exhibition, "Surrealist Drawings from the Drukier Collection," is on view at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art on campus through Oct. 19.

A talk by collectors Ira and Gale Drukier and art expert Timothy Baum will be held at the Johnson Museum this Friday, Sept. 5, at 4 p.m., followed by an opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m. The events are free and open to the public.

"This is one of the premier private collections of surrealist drawings in the United States, and it is a privilege for us to present it to the public for the first time," said Frank Robinson, the Richard J. Schwartz Director of the Johnson Museum. "We are deeply grateful to the Drukier family for making this exhibition possible."

The collection of about 150 works explores the surrealist movement, which flourished in Europe between World Wars I and II and influenced virtually every artist working at the time, including Picasso and Miró, according to Nancy Green, the exhibition's curator. What makes the exhibition especially exciting, she said, are the quality of the work, the breadth of the collection and the medium of drawing itself: "Surrealism is about exploring the psyche in a spontaneous, immediate way. Drawing is the medium to do it in," she said. Featured are key works on paper by André Breton, Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Roberto Matta, Kay Sage, Yves Tanguy, Dorothea Tanning and others.

Ira Drukier, a member of the Cornell Class of 1966, became interested in collecting surrealist art while still an undergraduate, when he admired a print he saw by Matta. He purchased his first piece, by André Masson, in New York City soon after college. Later his wife, Gale, joined him in the collecting enterprise.

Influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud, the surrealists aimed at uniting the conscious with the unconscious mind to create a more-than-real, or "surreal" world. Their art and writing were seen as a reaction to the destruction produced by World War I, and the false rationalism that had led up to it. They also saw the unconscious mind as the source of all imaginative works.

"It looks at the world differently, perhaps even askew. It's visual but also mental," said Drukier of his fascination with surrealism. Its appeal is universal, he said. "As children we all looked up at the clouds and imagined we saw dragons."

"The Drukiers bought brilliantly," said Green of the collection. "Although they're intimate in scale, these drawings convey massive emotions through imagery, some of it violent, sexual or disturbing but also profound in the intensity of its examination of the times."

A real estate developer and hotelier, Drukier is vice chair of the Johnson Museum's advisory council and chair of the collection committee. Gale Drukier, a faculty member at Trenton State University for 17 years, is now involved in her husband's business. The exhibition is especially exciting for them, they say, because it's the first time many of the works will be hung together.

One highlight of the exhibition is the "exquisite corpse" drawings by surrealist masters in which several artists contributed to a single work on a sheet of paper, folded to prevent them from looking beforehand at what the others had drawn. Also featured is a touch screen in which visitors can leaf online through artists' books created by Dalí and other surrealists.

In addition to the opening talk and celebration on Sept. 5, the museum has planned the following special events during the course of the exhibition:

·Saturday, Oct. 11, 7 to 10 p.m., surrealist games and music from the era when surrealism flourished (admission fee; limited reservations available, must be made by Oct. 3. Call 254-4586);

·Thursday, Oct. 16, noon, exhibition tour led by curator Nancy Green (part of the museum's Art for Lunch series);

·Throughout October, series of surrealist films, shown by Cornell Cinema (see http://www-cinema.slife.cornell.edu).

The exhibition, which was partly funded through a Cornell Council for the Arts grant, was three years in the making. It features a catalog, for sale at the museum, that was written by Green and includes essays by Ira Drukier, Baum and Charles Stuckey. For more information, contact Andrea Potochniak, publications and publicity coordinator, at 254-4563.