Members of the ARLIS TX/MX chapter attended a tour of the Hamon Arts Library at Southern Methodist University given by Beverly Mitchell, the library’s Fine Arts and Dance Librarian. The tour began with an introduction to Hamon’s Special Collections where Dr. Sam Ratcliffe, Head of Special Collections, displayed some examples of the artwork and documents for the then upcoming Meadows Museum exhibition, Jerry Bywaters: Interpreter of the Southwest & Lone Star Printmaker,. Bywaters was a professor of art at SMU and director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, now the Dallas Museum of Art. Several of his works and archives, which Bywaters bequeathed to Hamon, comprise the nucleus of this exhibition. This exhibition runs from November 30th, 2007-March 2nd, 2008. Dr. Ratcliffe also took chapter members into the vault where he showed and discussed other special holdings of the library, including model drawings by Bywaters for post office murals in west Texas and the archives of Greer Garson.
Beverly Mitchell then took members through the library to show its services and circulating collection, which supports the curriculum of the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU. Subject areas in the collection are art, art and architectural history, music, film, theatre, dance, arts administration, and communications. The print holdings for Hamon are approximately 152,000 volumes. Print holdings for art are approximately 58,000 and current art and architecture journals are at 94. The building has four floors, the basement of which is dedicated to audio/visual services and computers. In this area, students and faculty may check out CDs, DVDs, and iPods with class playlists, or they may compose music, edit digital video, or use other software for their coursework. The upper three floors house periodicals, reference materials, and the stacks.
At the end of the tour, members had the opportunity to view an exhibition, Printing in Color, in the library’s Mildred Hawn Exhibition Gallery. This exhibition was curated by Dr. Lisa Pon, Assistant Professor of Art History, with the assistance of Dr. Sam Ratcliffe and Ellen Buie-Niewyk, Curator of the Bywaters Collection. The prints for this exhibition were selected in conjunction with assignments for a Meadows art history class, History and Theory of Prints.
Beverly Mitchell
Southern Methodist University