Hank Jensen Exhibit Opens Sept. 3 at NVU-Lyndon
To observe the 50th anniversary of the installation of the sculpture “Etruscan Stripes” at Northern Vermont University-Lyndon, an exhibit about the piece and other art by Hank Jensen will run Sept. 3-27 at Quimby Gallery on campus.
A discussion of Jensen’s work and the construction of “Etruscan Stripes” will be at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 17 in the Burke Mountain Room at Samuel Read Hall Library. The discussion, a reception at 3 p.m. Sept. 21 at the gallery, and the exhibit, “Hank Jensen: Figure and Space,” are free for the public.
Jensen, who died in 1999, was commissioned in 1968 to build the 7 1/2-ton, 10-foot-high sculpture, funded by the Vermont State Colleges System and Vermont Council on the Arts. He spent the winter of 1969-70 in residence at what was then Lyndon State College to build a full-size plywood model. Jensen finished the steel version at the Marshfield home of Chet Cole, a designer-craftsman, master welder and glassblower who collaborated in the construction. Cole died in 2017.
The outdoor sculpture sits between Alexander Twilight Theatre and the Theodore N. Vail Center.
The Quimby Gallery exhibit will feature studies for the finished sculpture, a film and photos documenting its construction and the transporting of the piece from Marshfield to the college, and other artwork by Jensen.
Quimby Gallery is open 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday. For more information, email the gallery director at Barclay.Tucker@NorthernVermont.edu, call 802.626.6487 or visit NorthernVermont.edu/events.