The Thesis Gallery

by Megan Fuhrman
Throughout my years spent as a painting major at the University of Iowa, I have from time to time been told about the Thesis Gallery. The Thesis Gallery, as I have come to understand, is a collection of rooms holding pieces of art which U of I graduate art students were required to give to the school at graduation. (This requirement has since been converted to an option.) The pieces in the collection date back to 1939 and entail mediums such as painting, sculpture, ceramics, metals, printmaking, and photography.
After hearing stories about this collection, I would sit and imagine the thousands of works created by graduate students, just sitting somewhere; never did I visualize myself actually helping to curate a show using those past works.
It was early October and my Issues in Contemporary Art class was trying to decide on a semester class project. When the suggestion about putting together a show using the Thesis Gallery came forth, I was more then ecstatic. However, I soon realized that deciding on a project was the easy part.
Many weeks of visits to the Thesis Gallery, phone calls, and emailing classmates followed and I learned an incredible amount about the difficulties of forming a show. However, with time, our project and its pieces came together and we now have a beautiful show of the past at hand. It has been a wonderful experience and I am very proud of the result.