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Keeping an extensive collection of great art in storage is like having Stokowski conduct Beethoven in an empty concert hall. It’s a missed opportunity.

Soon, the University of Colorado will have the space to connect its great art with people who savor it.

The CU Art Museum has an impressive permanent art collection. But that collection was long tucked inside a small space in the now-razed art building.

“It didn’t have any presence, because nobody knew it was there,” a museum board member says. The former space also lacked adequate climate controls. When the new Visual Arts Complex opens next year, the museum will have the facilities and space to display its permanent collection.

Lisa Tamiris Becker, director of the CU Art Museum, is eager to share the collection, which contains more than 6,000 works of art. The first pieces were collected in 1939, and the entire collection has been built through the generosity of donors, either through gifts of art or gifts of funds to purchase art.

Tamiris Becker notes that the collection includes an impressive array of art from many continents and historical periods.

To underscore the range of art in the collection, Tamiris Becker highlights some of its holdings. For instance, the collection includes work by Elizabeth Murray, who did modern painting on three-dimensional canvases.

“It’s actually sculptural,” Tamiris Becker says of Murray’s work, describing the artist as one of the most important women painters. Before Murray’s death, the Museum of Modern Art in New York hosted a retrospective of her work. “That would be the highest honor for an artist,” Tamiris Becker says.

Another important painter represented in the permanent collection is Jasper Cropsey. A painting called “Solitude, the Pontine Marshes, Italy” was completed in 1850, just after Crospey returned from Europe. Like many of his peers at the time, Cropsey painted the European landscape.

Later, he turned his attention to the American landscape and joined the Hudson River School of painting, which emphasized a romantic view of the land.

Tamiris Becker also cites the museum’s Japanese wood-block collection, which includes works by noted masters like Utagawa Kuniyoshi. The museum has a woodcut triptych called “First Boat Ride on the New Pond,” and having the whole triptych is “really special,” Tamiris Becker says.

The collection of Asian art has special significance for Asian study and research, which complements the work of CU’s Center for Asian Studies.

Renaissance art is well represented by works including a painting titled “Rest on the flight into Egypt,” from the Studio of Jan Brueghel the Younger. “For a student to be able to observe a 17th century piece on panel, rather than just on a slide, to see the painting technique of the time, is a very significant experience,” Tamiris Becker observes.

The permanent collection also includes more than 100 prints of William Hogarth, whose analysis-of-beauty series is “significant for pointing to aesthetic and social norms of the time,” Tamiris Becker notes.

A striking example of modern Chinese art comes from Zhang Xiaogang in a work titled “Big Family.” In that 2009 lithograph and silkscreen work, Xiaogang places a red line through father and daughter, representing lineage, which is important to Chinese identity. Yellow light cast on the faces could represent a mask or could be a comment on race, Tamiris Becker says.

“Works by this artist have achieved the level of recognition of an Andy Warhol,” she adds.

Tamiris Becker ticks off an impressive range of art from other periods, traditions and media: 16th-century Vietnamese pottery, medieval manuscripts from Normandy, African wood sculpture, an etching of Goya, ancient Greek pottery, modern sculpture, and even a video from Liliana Porter, a significant contemporary Latin American artist.

Much of this work, which includes more than 4,000 works on paper, will be on display in the new Visual Arts Complex. Tamiris Becker notes that the new complex will allow the museum to have “substantial parts of our collection on display.” This is a significant step for “maximizing the value of this incredible resource,” she says.

Of the ancient classic art, she adds, “We have the passion for these collections, to care for them and invest in their long-term preservation.”

Besides a large permanent-collection gallery, the museum will maintain smaller permanent galleries that will have specialized cases so that portions can be displayed from different periods. “All of galleries can be named by a donor who would want to support art collections and their central role in education,” Tamiris Becker says.

Besides the permanent collection, the museum will mount major exhibitions on loan from peer institutions and others.

All of this emphasizes the museum’s commitment to diversity and a global education, which reflects the strategic goals of CU. Students can learn about African, Asian, American and European art traditions, Tamiris Becker says.

The $63.5 million Visual Arts Complex, now under construction and scheduled to open next year, is a state-of-the-art facility that will house the museum and the Department of Art and Art History.

The 170,000-square-foot complex will be the premier visual-arts building in the CU system and the “cultural gateway” for the ��«����Ƶ campus, officials say. It will also attract visitors from around the metro area, they believe.

Given that it is situated at the heart of campus, the structure itself is designed to emphasize the central role of art at the university. As Tamiris Becker suggests, the permanent collection artfully underscores that point.

For more information and to get involved, please contact Micah Abram, director of development, CU Foundation, at 303-541-1465, or via e-mail at micah.abram@cufund.org.