Alma Mater Much of the art on the UI campus is in plain view, and we walk past it

Lorado Taft's Alma Mater statue. A gift to the university by Class of 1929,
the bronze statue depicts Alma Mater as "a benign and majestic woman in
scholastic robes, who rises from her throne and advances a step with
outstretched arms, a gesture of generously greeting her children." Flanking
her are representations of the university's motto, Labor and Learning.
Today, it is doubtful that anyone would quibble with the Alma Mater's
placement at the corner of Wright and Green streets, where it welcomes the
public and members of the university community. However, when the grouping
was moved in 1962 to its present location - from its 33-year "temporary"
location behind the Foellinger Auditorium - the move created a local stir.
In her book, UI art history professor Muriel "Mickey" Scheinman notes that
the statue was moved "amid student protests over its 'shocking' new
location ... The Daily Illini found the placement to be in the 'worst
possible taste; it makes the Alma Mater a debased, commercial advertisement
for the University.' " What a difference a few decades make.

The Life of Lincoln
It's easy to miss the campus' 10 terra cotta panels depicting "The Life of
Lincoln." Even though the panels are located in a prominent location on the
Quad - at either side of the main entrance on Lincoln Hall's exterior walls
- they're positioned so high that few even notice them, much less are able
to make out the visual stories they convey. In her book, Scheinman wrote
that a campus committee of architecture and art professors found no
complaints with the panels when they were created in 1911, but members
objected to the panels' hard-to-view location. Responding to their
complaints, William D. Gates, president and general manager of the terra
cotta company that designed the pieces, wrote in a letter to UI president
Edmund Janes James: "You have a mighty fine faculty socially and
educationally but they are too much for me as critics. ... Unfortunately
Michael Angelo [sic], who might have been able to do this work[,] is not
now accessible and indeed it occurs that it's possible that if he had been
compelled to submit to the Art Commission before placing his work, Italy
might not today have some of her art treasures. ... This is the work your
Architect wanted, but your Professors will have to live with it." And so
they have.

Illinois Farmers' Hall of Fame and the Editors' Hall of Fame.
Without question, some of the more obscure collections of campus art would
have to be the Illinois Farmers' Hall of Fame and the Editors' Hall of
Fame. The former is a collection of portraits, assembled between 1909 and
1917. Originally, they which hung together on the fourth floor of Mumford
Hall; they are now scattered throughout the agriculture library in Mumford.
The Hall of Fame was created "to give historical permanence and value to
the labors of these great leaders, but by examples and instance to
stimulate endeavors on the part of the younger men in order that this
development so gloriously begun may proceed to its highest achievement."
In 1930, the Editor's Hall of Fame - eight bronze busts of such journalists
as Joseph Meharry Medill and Associated Press founder Melville Elijah Stone
- was dedicated in a ceremony in the Auditorium [now Foellinger
Auditorium]. The busts - and a ninth one that was added the following year
- were displayed in the lobby of the Auditorium until 1940, when they were
moved to Gregory Hall.

Anna Margarethe Lange plaque
One of the more touching examples of memorial art on campus is a bronze
plaque depicting Anna Margarethe Lange, wife of former UI president Edmund
Janes James. The president commissioned the plaque - which hangs in the
foyer of the Foellinger Auditorium - in 1917, three years after her death.
Although it was created specifically to honor his wife, James noted that it
also was intended to recognize "that women who have no official connection
with the University, except through the fact that their husbands are
members of the staff, may form a very real source of strength and power in
the accomplishment of those ends for which the University exists."
Scheinman indicated that Mrs. James also was remembered as "a grandmother
to all faculty babies" and as "an earnest advocate of women's suffrage."

The Four Hemispheres: Polar, Celestial, Eastern, Western
Above the main staircases in the UI Library are four large, Art Deco
oil-on-canvas murals, "The Four Hemispheres: Polar, Celestial, Eastern,
Western" commissioned in 1926 by New York painter Barry Faulkner. A small
detail in the "Celestial Hemisphere" - the depiction of ancient
Greco-Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy looking through a telescope - proved
cause for alarm among certain faculty members, who were not amused by
Faulkner's use of artistic license. In her book, Scheinman indicated that
"within two weeks of the mural's installation, alert academicians
dispatched an urgent message advising that 'It is clear that the figure
labeled Ptolemy, who is represented as using a spy glass, or telescope,
appears likely to bring the institution into a certain kind of ridicule.' "
Another concerned faculty member opined, "They might almost as well have
Caesar crossing the Alps in an aeroplane." In response to the criticism,
the artist noted that "so many things were known to the Greeks and then
lost," that he was "pretty certain that if those clever Alexandrines didn't
have lenses they at least looked through tubes so as to isolate the
portions of the heavens they wished to observe." He signed off on the
criticism by adding, "Anyhow, what is an anachronism between friends?"

Growing in Illinois
One of the more contemporary additions to the UI's art collection is
"Growing in Illinois," a massive, welded Cor-ten steel sculpture situated
on the east side of the Veterinary Medicine Basic Sciences Building. The
artist, Richard Hunt, described it as being "evocative of animal forms,"
but maintained that it does not represent a particular animal. Not so,
according to some Vet Med employees. Scheinman, in her book, relates an
anecdote in which a photographer was taking a picture of the sculpture and
was intercepted by a lab technician. The technician got the photographer's
attention by shouting, "No! No! Shoot it from here! Then you can see it's a
dog!"