Monday, September 16, 1957-Page 9,
Art School's McClure
When Everything Is Completely Functional, You Feel
As if You're Under an Obligation'
By LANE VANDERSLICE to desribe the emotions I have
Daily Staffi witer
t tried to express in any particular
UDING BY Prof. Thomas Me-cuptr'
CUr ING coun reialomr saIntrying to accomplish this,
forte ha beei scutpture on Prof. McClure makes use of his re-
grand scat sactions to form, texture and posi-
Prof. M Cture, C h ot srches tion. These, in turn, come from
utcpture a t the Colcg of Achi anything which he has seen or
tecture and Drin, has designed imagmied. His forms are sometimes
a 14-foot high and 26-foot lon animals, ometimes symbols, an
metal mural of the world for the sometimes purposely ambigious.
Ford Motor Company Centrat "No matter what the shape though,
Staff Ottfic at Dearborn. the feeling is always human in
He has done comparatively origin.
smaller sculptures for a Detroit
shopping center and a southern HAE NOT tried to amuse or
motel. He is presently working on "I
a model of another for a Mem-
phis, Tenn. shopping center. others may follow in my serious
"Stores are finally realizing, or *work, I simply have attempt to
architects are making them realize, delineate many of the feelings that
what is discouraging people from exist in man."
shopping downtown. Besides being In his cubbyhole office in the
,convenient to u'et to, it. un- architecture building, Prof. Me-
pleasant while you're there Clure talked about the stage at
"You thae to wait to gO stop- which modern art is today,
ping, 'nd 'ant to sta y 'hopping., According to him, much of the
The too-functional1 dosw'town area 1 r' w revolution has died out of modern
doesn't encourage this. s i nYW« , art "Acceptance of new materials
"Wihen everything is completely and new techniques is widespread.
functional, you feel as if you're Young sculptors did not participate
under an obligation t do your U TOR AND IS WOK-Prf Thomas McClure pauses with a recent creation in one of the in the action against older art
shoppn g This isn't very enjoy- workrooms of the College of Architecture and Design, where he teaches in addition to his com- forms and techniques. As a result,
able, so it isn't very profitable for mercial work- we have no prejudice against tra-
the ,tores, When 'ou don't brow. ghe went to college at the Uniser- time sculpture instructor the arch- He has tried to show in h ditional art forms and techniques'
sdon't buyAll the previous dissension be-
you don't buy, , sity of Nebraska. itecture school had. "It's hard tosculpture the range, shadings, ir- tween modern and traditional art
"Proper designing of shopping, He started school as a journal- evaluate the different art schools, seevres ean asain of toeno midtrn acordi iof.
centers eliminates this. Sculpture' mmjr-"egghsbt. btItikMcia a opreleevancies and association of an is now history, according to Prof,
coerelmntsti.Supuetmmjr-"hedging his bt,' but I think Michigan can compare idea, McClure "Now we can draw freely
do s its part by providing some- as he calls it. Although always with any of them. "ne simple woed cannot be used on all heritage left us"
thing not functional in a strict interested, he wasn't sure he was "Traveling around the coontry -- e word .annot be .d t
sense, but necesary for enainomnt good enough to make a career of helpe you to avoid e t idea that -- -.-
and relaxation. art, but after one semester of there is one right way of doing
O journalism, he decided he might things in art." Often the instruc-
BECAUSE OF THIS, his main as well try. He studied pinting tors t one schoolDwill get u ed to
aim in this kind of sculpture is while in school, but has since each other and their ideas will
making each design pleasing to the switched to sculpture. become very nearly the same,
eye. There are two external factors After graduating from college, To say that Prof. McClure's com--jfit
which mu t be considered accord- he received a teaching fellowship mercial sculpture is big, and so t for . . .
tugtowif.sMcrure itieobjete cfrom Washington State College, imply it is not much else, is an
that will surround it, an t the de- But the war intervened. During the injustice. He puts careful atten-
ion function, war, he worked as an illustrator at tion and craftsmanship into each DAIRY QUEEN
For instance. the sculptaire tBoeing aicraft, painting only on of his sculptures. Welds are so
Memphis mu.t blend in with the Sundays. insisible that the sculpture seems 303 East Liberty
modern architecture, but mu.st als After the wa, he studied at the to be solid.
be the focal paint of a paul of Cranbrook Institute of Art. "You're
water, mainly on your own there. It's not WARDS ATTEST to the fact ' --- --- --- -- -- --
Ford stipulated their design be a the type of studying you associate that the 37-year-old professor
map of the world. Prof. McClureI with Michigan. is more than just a craftsman. He Try FOLLETT'S First
explained that conditions are not "Any artist graduating from art has received awards in various ex-
usually so restrictive. There were' school has just begun. Up until this hibitions: the main one being the
two other unusual problems in time, I hadn't had much training, Founder's prize of the Michigan UNaU M B O O K 'S
this job, Prof. McClure said. The just a good art background." Artists Show,
mural had to be used as a screen Prof. McClure's personal work/ at
for two escalators but embarrass- E GOT a job teaching at a has a different aim, "I present no BARGES
ing difficulty was finding a large school at Alfred, New York, but ideals of beauty in my.sculpture.
enough place to build the mural. wasn't satisfied with the type of My own part has been trying to
teaching he had to do there. So he show some of the relationships-
AS THE OLD ciche goes, Prof. quit, and . then taught sculpture the feelings--within and between
McClure "has always been in- and design at the University of men. I, at least, cannot present F O L
terested in art." After completing Oklahoma. these ideas anyway but through STATE STREET at NORTH UNIVERSITY
high school in Pawnee City, Neb- From there, he came to the sculpture."
raska, where he was born in 1920, University. He was the first full - -
BIW, SPR AWILING :
Levin's 'Compulsion'
(Continued from Page e) bloodthirsty avidity of spectators
at the trial.
are full and the sidelights very A WA
real. The monumentally sad figure Ybecause, while treating the speci-
of Judd's father is there, trying so fic, it tries to cover and explain an
hard to understand why it was era. In assessing the impact of
that his son did this thing. The Nietzsche, of gauging the effect of
girlfriends, Myra and Ruth, ring the "new psychology," it succeeds.
true, and Willie Weiss, the budding But it is still the chronicle of a
psychiatrist, with his beautifully horrible crime and its motivations.
hung-together Freudian theories. And as a plea for understanding
And there are the other aspects- rather than destruction, for fight-
the cruelty the crime brought out ing inhumanity with humanity, it
in people; the thousands of crank is deeply compassionate and con-
notes, the Ku Klux Klan, the vincing.
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STAP
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