Great Plains Art Museum curator Reece Summers leaving

A. Reece Summers, curator of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Great Plains Art Museum since August 2001, announced he is leaving his position July 15.

During his nearly six-year tenure, Summers has forged stronger relationships with local school art programs, acquired funding for artists-in-residence, produced traveling educational art exhibitions, hosted a national American artists juried show, implemented a modern storage system for the permanent collection, and collaborated with members of the Friends of the Center for Great Plains Studies board of directors to produce an annual invitational art show and sale.

"With the help of a wonderful staff, I have accomplished many of the goals I envisioned when I started. We are leaving Lincoln, because my wife, Wynne, accepted a faculty position at Southern Utah University in Cedar City. Since receiving her Ph.D. in English and Native American literature last spring, Wynne has been teaching Native American literature classes at UNL," said Summers.

James Stubbendieck, director of the Center for Great Plains Studies and the Great Plains Art Museum, said Summers brought a direction the museum needed after moving to Hewit Place,1155 Q St. "Reece built community relationships with downtown organizations and a wonderful collaboration with school art programs," Stubbendieck said. "He developed a strategic plan to prepare the museum for its next leadership role."

Summers said this is an opportune time for leaving the museum. "We just installed new compact storage systems for both our artwork and for our research library. We narrowly avoided a loss of millions of dollars of artwork in January when a car fire in the Que Place parking garage caused hundreds of gallons of water to pour into the gallery and storage facilities. No art work was harmed, but the resulting water damage to the facilities has been removed and walls and flooring replaced. Now our permanent collection is ready for exhibition this summer and fall."

Jim Hewitt, president of the Friends of the Center, said, "Reece has been a superb curator; he developed relationships between the public and the gallery more than we ever anticipated, and he opened up the gallery to new friends and visitors from all across the Plains."

Wildlife sculptor and Friends board member Cliff Hollestelle said, "I have great regard for Reece and the direction and visibility he has achieved for the gallery. On behalf of the Friends of the Center, we will greatly miss his guidance."

Hollestelle, Hewitt, and Friends board members Linda Clare, Fred Hoppe, Wendy Katz, Alice McElhose, Dr. John Reed and Jon Nelson, have worked with Summers during the past few years to plan and establish the annual Great Plains invitational art show and sale. The Friends recently hosted their third invitational art show, April 27-May 6, which included 10 regional artists and 98 works of art. A percentage of the sales from the show was used to purchase representational art for the permanent collection.

Stubbendieck said a search to replace Summers would begin soon.

The Great Plains Art Museum houses the Great Plains Art Collection, which contains the original Christlieb Collection of western art and library of western Americana, the Patricia J. and Stanley H. Broder Collection of 20th-century Native American paintings, the Richard Lane Collection of western fiction and history, and the Regina Collection of Canadian plains literature. The museum opened in 1981, when Dr. John and Elizabeth Christlieb of Bellevue donated their art and book collection to the Center for Great Plains Studies and provided an endowment for the care and maintenance of the collection. Jon Nelson was the first curator of the museum.

The Center for Great Plains Studies is an interdisciplinary, intercollegiate, regional research and teaching program chartered in 1976 by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. For more information, contact Stubbendieck by e-mail, telephone the center at (402) 472-3082 or visit its Web site (www.unl.edu/plains).

CONTACTS: James Stubbendieck, Director, Center for Great Plains Studies , (402) 472-3082
Reece Summers, Curator, Great Plains Art Museum, (402) 472-0599