UI’s Pollock “Mural” may make international tour

IOWA CITY - The University of Iowa's Jackson Pollock “Mural,” which survived a controversial proposal last month to sell the famed painting, may spend a year and a half on an international tour.

The plan isn't finalized yet, but UI Museum of Art Director Sean O'Harrow said Friday he's excited about the possibility for a splashy, major exhibition of American art with “Mural” as the centerpiece.

“I'm just over the moon about being able to promote Iowa as a world-class player in world culture,” O'Harrow said. “We're not proposing an idea that's second rate. It's a blockbuster, world-class, first-rate idea.”

The wheels are in motion and two consultants have been retained to line up venues for the exhibit and get loaned art from other major museums for the show. O'Harrow proposes the exhibit have 30 to 40 important works in addition to “Mural,” pieces that show the history of American art from the 1940s on and how other artists were influenced by Pollock and “Mural,” considered by some experts to be one of the most important modern American paintings.

Costs to launch and travel the exhibit could be about $1.5 million, but it's expected to bring in about $2 million and draw huge crowds, with each chosen museum likely paying several hundred thousand to host the show, O'Harrow said. So the UI Museum of Art could earn about $500,000, which could be used for a new museum building and for programs to train students in museum and cultural organization management.

“My first and foremost objective is to make sure this exhibition is in the black,” O'Harrow said. “But I think the benefits go beyond the profits.”

O'Harrow said he's “99 percent sure” the proposed exhibit, “Jackson Pollock's ‘Mural' and American Art,” will happen, and he hopes contracts with venues will be worked out in the coming weeks. Joseph Ketner II, a curator and art historian from Emerson College in Boston, is one of the consultants on the project. Ketner will be in Iowa City April 1 to discuss the plan with museum officials and boosters.

“Mural” is rarely loaned to other institutions, due to its value and size and fragility. It has only been loaned once since 1999.

Moving the painting, which is 8-by-20 feet and weighs about 300 pounds, isn't easy, so the exhibit likely will be limited to four or five major venues, O'Harrow said. Museums in St. Petersburg, Japan and New York have expressed interest. O'Harrow talks of locations like Brazil, India and China to promote Iowa to new markets.

“The most important museums in the world are approaching us,” he said. “I'm almost beating people off with a stick.”

The proposal calls for the launch of the show in summer 2013 and the possible ending of the show in late 2014 in Iowa City, if the UI Museum of Art has a new museum facility by then. O'Harrow said the idea of the exhibit and the deadline of the UI being the last host could spur fundraising for a new museum and ensure people keep it in the front of their minds.

UI Museum of Art leaders actually started kicking the idea around several years ago, O'Harrow said. But then the 2008 flood forced the evacuation of the 12,000 piece collection from the former museum building. Most of the UI collection is now at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, with some also on the UI campus, and UI officials are appealing to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the funding to build a new museum in a different location. That appeal to FEMA is still under consideration.

Last fall, UI officials revived the idea of the international exhibit, O'Harrow said. The discussion raised in the Iowa Legislature in February about making the university sell the famed painting, valued at $140 million, just reinforces how important it is to the university and how much positive goodwill and education about Iowa it could generate if the work is shown internationally, O'Harrow said.

It's an ambitious project that could have global art impact, Ketner  said in an email to O'Harrow Feb. 11. The emails regarding the project were obtained by The Gazette through an open records request.

“We appreciate your recognition that this project is a very important one that could position Pollock's Mural and the UIMA in the global art world,” Ketner wrote.

The exact consultant fees won't be known until contracts are signed, but one UI email says Ketner's signing fee to initiate a search for grants and to negotiate for venues and art loans is $10,000, with an additional $10,000 for each venue he lines up for the tour. He also estimated $40,000 in travel fees and expenses.

Several emails also discussed the best way to ship the Pollock, with one email asking if it could be rolled up for transport.

“There are other options to rolling the canvas. I think we should explore all of the options before deciding to roll a thickly impastoed Pollock,” Ketner wrote in response.

Several emails say “Mural,” painted in 1943, is in need of much conservation. O'Harrow said Friday the conservation needs are less than originally thought, and that it will be done before the international exhibit.