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The Springfield Art Museum is hosting an exhibit that takes a look at the changes of Springfield through the ages. KSMU’s Matthew Barnes reports.
Standup: I’m standing outside the Springfield Art Museum. Tomorrow will be the opening of the "History of Springfield in Art" exhibit. It will feature many landscapes of Springfield from different time periods, many done by artisits that lived in Springfield themselves.
“The time period is between the 1860-70 to around 2008,” said Phillips.
That's Chalen Phillips, curator for the Springfield Art Museum. He says he wanted to put all of the different pieces together because it would be an interesting way to look at how the town changed as it grew over the years.
The walls of the exhibit are covered in paintings, drawings and photographs of landscapes in and around Springfield's downtown area.
One oil painting with thick brush strokes was done by Beverly Hopkin. She was formally the registrar for the Springfield Art Museum and a professor at Missouri State. Phillips says the painting displays an area of downtown Springfield sometime in the 60’s.
“This was before they built Chestnut Street, before they widened it. So this is kind of like a view from city hall. And this is a typical trademark of Beverly Hopkins because she really enjoyed working in an abstract style,” said Phillips.
Phillips says the art together shows how Springfield has transformed into a bigger city over the years. J. G. Hulett’s Portrait of the Square, done in 1882, shows a sparsely populated area around the old courthouse. It was torn down in 1914 and replaced by the now-empty Heer’s department store.
Photographs by local artist Raymond Kennon taken in the 1950’s show a thriving downtown economy. Again, Chalen Phillips.
“In the photograph you can see the department store, the hustle and bustle that the city is now trying to bring back [downtown]. But they never will because we have the Battlefield Shopping Mall and that pretty much destroyed the downtown,” said Phillips.
The shift from rural town to urban city is an interesting thing to see on canvas, Phillips says. The exhibit shows the different aspects of the visual change of Springfield. A pair of Ralph Palmer cartoons capture how people in the 70’s felt about the change.
“They’re in denial of the reality of the city is actually growing around them and that’s what he wanted to point out. That the city is changing and it will continue to change, but there will be people to fight it no matter what because they want that small town feeling,” said Phillips.
The exhibit opens tomorrow (July 14th ) and runs through September 16th. For KSMU News, I’m Matthew Barnes.