University of Iowa welcomes home Jackson Pollock’s ‘Mural’

Celebrated work will be on display for UI Stanley Museum of Art grand opening

Aug. 4, 2022 4:18 pm, Updated: Aug. 4, 2022 5:35 pm

This scene from the documentary film "Jackson Pollock's Mural: The Story of a Modern Masterpiece" shows an actor in silhouette portraying Pollock as he studies his 1943 masterpiece. The monumental work has returned to its own gallery in the new University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art. The building will be dedicated and opened to the public Aug. 26. (Courtesy of University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art)

IOWA CITY — Just in time for the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art’s long-awaited reopening on Aug. 26, its most heralded piece — Jackson Pollock’s “Mural” — is back on campus after a long hiatus.

“Mural” arrived home July 14 after nine years touring museums and entertaining millions in Europe and across the United States. Welcomed by museum Director Lauren Lessing in its 3,200-pound crate, “Mural” has been placed in its new home in the second-floor Chris and Suzy DeWolf Family Gallery.

Displaced by the 2008 flood, like many UI collection pieces, the 8-by-20-foot “Mural” traveled to 14 venues at home and abroad.

The museum will be officially dedicated Aug. 26, kicking off a two-day grand-opening celebration. Its inaugural exhibition, titled “Homecoming,” will display more than 600 works by 500-some artists, including “Mural,” which marks a “pivotal moment in Pollock’s career.”

“We are bringing home all the wonderful works of art that people have missed so much — the rock stars of the Stanley Museum of Art,” Lessing said in a statement.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com

The University of Iowa's most famous piece of art — "Mural," by Jackson Pollock, hasn't been displayed in Iowa City in more than a decade, but has returned to its own gallery in the new UI Stanley Museum of Art. Here, workers prepare set "Mural" down while moving the painting April 10, 2009, at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport. "Mural" was a gift to the UI art museum from noted art collector Peggy Guggenheim. (The Gazette)