FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Sept. 20, 2000 CONTACT: Lisa Lacher, (515) 271-3119 KIRSCHENBAUM EXHIBITION TO OPEN AT DRAKE OCT. 8 A retrospective presenting over 40 years of work by distinguished artist Jules Kirschenbaum (1930-2000) will open at Drake University's Anderson Gallery on Sunday, Oct. 8. "A Matchless Clarity: Paintings and Studies by Jules Kirschenbaum" will feature more than 35 paintings, drawings and collages spanning the artist's notable career. An opening reception will take place from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 8. Both the reception and exhibition, which continues through Nov. 5, are free and open to the public. Kirschenbaum was born in New York in 1930. He studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School and at the Hans Hoffman School. In 1953 he had his first one-man exhibition at the Salpeter Gallery in New York City and won the Hallgarten Prize at The National Academy of Design. In 1956 he married artist Cornelis Ruhtenberg. That same year Kirschenbaum was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Florence, Italy, where he remained until 1958. He moved to Des Moines with his family in 1963 to assume the position of artist-in-residence at the Des Moines Art Center. In 1967 he was appointed associate professor of art at Drake University, becoming a full professor in 1970. While teaching at Drake, Kirschenbaum pursued his painting career, exhibiting in many group and one-man exhibitions throughout the country and in Japan and Italy. He has won numerous awards for his work, and is represented in such well-known public collections as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Des Moines Art Center; the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; the National Academy of Design, New York; and the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio. At Drake, Kirschenbaum received the President's Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching in 1989. At the time of his death on March 4 he was the Ellis and Nelle Levitt professor of art. Posthumously, he received the Drake Medal of Service for his distinguished service to the University. "A Matchless Clarity: Paintings and Studies by Jules Kirschenbaum" was co-curated by Marie-Louise Kane, director of the Anderson Gallery, and Thomas Worthen, associate professor in the Department of Art and Design at Drake University. Professor Worthen, an art historian specializing in the Italian Renaissance, and a colleague of Jules Kirschenbaum for 30 years, has written an insightful, illustrated essay about the artist's work for the catalogue accompanying the exhibition. The Anderson Gallery in the Harmon Fine Arts Center, 25th Street and Carpenter Avenue, provides Drake students and the Des Moines community the opportunity to experience the visual arts, past and present. Gallery hours are noon to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. All exhibitions are free and open to the public. For more information, call (515) 271-2863 or (515) 271-1994.