A sewn tapestry near the children’s section is among the most treasured pieces in the Washington Public Library’s art collection and is a testament to the wide variety of media and styles depicted on its walls. (Kalen McCain/The Union)
WASHINGTON – The walls of the Washington Public Library are filled with artwork, from community paintings to abstract depictions of human genius, and there’s also a hallway that features rotating monthly exhibits by local artists.
The exhibitions are managed by the library’s Art Committee, a body that not only decides what goes on the walls but is also responsible for selecting new pieces and reframing donated items.
Carol Ray, a current and founding member of the committee, said many of the pieces were in the library’s possession before the move from Main Street. The collection was largely donated by former Washington Evening Journal Editor David Elder, however, could not be exhibited in the limited space of the previous building.
The Helen Wilson Gallery at the Washington Public Library displays numerous bookplates, a once popular method of identifying the owner of a publication. (Kalen McCain/The Union)
But most of these works of art ended up in the basement of the current library after the move, waiting for someone to hang them on the wall. Even when they were rediscovered, librarians had little information about the works’ origins.
“For years, people didn’t know what we had because they couldn’t display it in the old library,” Ray said. “(Elder) had very good taste, but he didn’t know much about the artists or the technique, so we ended up having to do a lot of research.”
Some of this research was academic. The rest was largely based on Ray’s recognition of the names and signatures of the works.
She found that most of the items came from southeast Iowa.
“I was a high school art teacher for almost 30 years and also taught art history classes. I’ve always loved art museums and working there,” she said. “Having the opportunity to be a curator here was like a dream come true for me and I worked very hard at it.”
Ray remembered the moment she found an etching of pigs on a farm in that basement, made by her own college printmaking teacher, Virginia Myers.
Carol Ray said she was shocked to find a creation by her former graphic arts teacher in the basement of the Washington library. The work now has a prominent place in the large assembly room upstairs at the library. (Kalen McCain/The Union)
It is now in the Nicola Stoufer/Washington State Bank conference room.
“She would go to the stockyards that were there then and draw the animals,” Ray said. “When I saw it, I thought, ‘Nobody knows this is here, I could take this home!’… It was the first thing we put up.”
By combining contributions from Elder and other artists over the years, the Library now has an astonishing variety of media, styles and subjects in its art collection, with no more than two works by any artist represented in the galleries.
One is a painting of downtown facing south. Another, a sewn tapestry near the children’s section, is among the library’s most treasured pieces. An abstract work on the upper floor titled “Master of the Elements” shows a face that seems to only become visible if you look at it long enough in the right light.
A photo by Dave Elder himself shows the smoke coming out of the 70-year-old magazine Staff member’s whistle. A row of small bookplates in the Helen Wilson Gallery greets visitors at the top of the library’s stairs and represents a now somewhat outdated method of marking ownership of a book. A self-portrait in pressed charcoal, made by a Mid-Prairie student who later became an art professor, is said to be cursed.
A former Mid-Prairie student’s pressed charcoal self-portrait is said to be haunted, even though the artist decided to give a guest lecture at the Washington Public Library years after it was created when he became an art professor. (Kalen McCain/The Union)
Ray said she was proud not only of the variety but also of the quality and number of pieces on display.
“Many libraries only have a few paintings, but we have at least 50 unique works,” she said. “Of those, 46 are originals. A few are prints, but those are very limited prints… I think that makes us unique and I think it’s worth coming here just for the artwork.”
Ray said the collection also represents the values of the library itself, which is not just a knowledge institution but a living record of stories and achievements that challenges the mind and stimulates new ideas.
“To me it’s like a book, it’s just another way of compiling human records,” she said. “Except they’re very beautiful and fascinating. My advice to people is, don’t stop looking if you’re confused by something. Keep looking at it, and very soon you’ll probably have a very personal reaction to it.”
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