Purdue to move art gallery downtown
June 19, 2012
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Robert L. Ringel |
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Greater Lafayette community will soon have easier access to the art in Purdue's Robert L. Ringel Gallery.
University President France A Córdova on Tuesday (June 19) announced that the gallery will move from the Purdue Memorial Union to a downtown Lafayette location. The announcement was made during the Greater Lafayette Commerce breakfast held in her honor at the Holiday Inn Select. Córdova ends her term as Purdue's 11th president on July 15.
"This vibrant cultural resource will soon be closer to the heart of the Lafayette-West Lafayette community," Córdova said. "In this way, not only will the public have more access, Purdue also will support the downtown area's efforts to serve as a cultural center."
Purdue Galleries, in the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts, includes the Ringel Gallery, a second location in Stewart Center, and the Patti and Rusty Rueff Galleries in Pao Hall of Visual and Performing Arts. Ringel exhibits works by regional, national and international artists as well as items from the Purdue Galleries' permanent collection, with support from the College of Liberal Arts and assistance from Friends of the Galleries.
The gallery's namesake served Purdue for four decades - as a professor and head of the Department of Audiology and Speech Sciences; dean of the School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education; vice president and dean of the Graduate School; and executive vice president for academic affairs. He then returned to teaching until his death in 2006.
Ringel and his wife, Estelle, left $100,000 in their estate to help fund the gallery, saying, "We truly believe that the arts, in all their magnificent forms of beauty, must have a prominent place wherever and whenever people gather to ask the profound questions of the ages. The gallery is the learning environment, the archive and the studio of the lively and liberating mind."
A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Ringel received his bachelor's degree in 1959 from Brooklyn College and his master's and doctoral degrees from Purdue.
Writer: Jeanne Norberg, 765-494-2084, jnorberg@purdue.edu
Sources: France A. Córdova, president@purdue.edu
Craig Martin, Purdue Galleries director, 765-494-3061, cdmartin@purdue.edu
