University unveils Lindsay Study Room
Binghamton University paid tribute to one of its greatest scholars when the Kenneth C. Lindsay Study Room officially opened in the University Art Museum on Oct. 11.
“This is a room in which we will be able to renew the kind of art-history teaching that Ken believed in so much,” said John Tagg, professor of art history and comparative literature. “It is teaching that begins with the encounter between the student and the object or the artifact.”
Lindsay arrived at Harpur College in 1951 and would go on to chair the Art History Department for 17 years. He retired from the University in 1989 and received the University Medal in 2007 for his contributions as a Monuments Man during World War II, in which he helped to save European art treasures that had been seized by the Nazis. Lindsay died in 2008 at age 89.
“What delights me, too, is that by teaching in this room, we are going to be able to remember one of the key founders of this institution – one of the people of who came here when this was nothing but a field,” Tagg said. “He is one of those people who built not just the fabric of Harpur College, but also its ethos.”
The Homecoming celebration featured remarks from Tagg; Provost Donald Nieman; Harpur College Dean Anne McCall; and University Art Museum Director Diane Butler. About two dozen people, including Lindsay’s wife Christine, attended the celebration, which also featured a lecture from one of Lindsay’s protégés: William Voelkle ’61, curator and department head of medieval and renaissance manuscripts at the J.P. Morgan Library and Museum in New York.
The study room, located at the rear of the first floor of the Art Museum, offers a long table where up to 20 students can study or observe prints, photographs or art pieces. Tagg and Butler have already installed several objects in the room, which also features two custom-made print rails.
Nieman, who previously served as dean of Harpur College, said it has been a longtime goal to develop a stronger relationship between the Art Museum and the Art History Department. A study room, he said, is perfect for “faculty to use objects from the museum’s collection to teach classes.”