Philip Best | Oil | 1958

Gift of Betty Nelson 2011.03

Philip Best, a native of Arkansas, graduated from Oberlin College and studied at Pratt Institute and Columbia College. He was a member of the Purdue University art faculty for 15 years before his untimely death in a car accident as he and his father were leaving on a vacation at the start of Purdue’s spring break. Our Town was completed just before the artist’s death on March 1, 1972.

During his tenure, Best was an active part of the Lafayette Art Center (now the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette). Best served as a member of the Board of Directors, taught watercolor painting, and portrait painting at the Lafayette Art Center.

Fran Lacy | Offset Photo-Lithograph | 1976

Gift of Lafayette Redevelopment Authority 1976.01

Fran Lacy is a native of Indiana and began her studies at Indiana University where she explored various media including jewelry design, silversmithing, and graphic design. She transferred to Purdue University in 1970 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1972. Lacy joined Twinrocker Handmade Paper Mill in 1979 and later, with her husband Terry, formed Lacy Designs.

This print was created by placing images on a series of transparent sheets. There was one transparent sheet for each color. Haywood Printing of Lafayette performed the physical printing of the series. After the press run, the artist eliminated all but the best 100 examples, which were then signed and numbered.

Atossa Rahmanifar | Oil | 2023

Museum Purchase 2023.13

Lafayette resident Rahmanifar approaches her paintings by applying multiple layers of oil paint mixed with cold wax medium, using a variety of tools and techniques. Throughout this process, she selectively scrapes, scratches, and dissolves layers as they build, revealing hidden depth beneath the surface.

The experience of a place serves as the starting point for her work. As layers of paint are added and removed, the meaning and mood of each piece unfold intuitively and abstractly. Colors, shapes, textures, and marks evolve through a delicate balance of chance and control. Rahmanifar intentionally stops short of making her work immediately recognizable, inviting viewers to interpret and explore on their own.

Her intention is to capture the essence of a place and the emotions tied to it, telling a story beyond the surface. Through her work, she expresses the interplay between what has passed and what remains, exposing contrasts of memory, emotion, and time.

Dan Annarino | Oil | 2013

Purchase from the Connie and Richard Grace Collection Fund 2013.03.01

Dan Annarino was born and raised in West Lafayette, Indiana where he now resides. He received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1974 and his MA from Purdue in 1982.

He was employed as a graphic designer in the Agricultural Communication Department at Purdue University until his retirement in 2016. Annarino maintains a painting studio in downtown Lafayette, Indiana, and exhibits his paintings throughout the Midwest. He states that living in the Midwest has influenced his style of painting. The landscape has a structure and at times a grid system; telephone poles, fields, rows, horizon lines, etc. He goes on to say that he tries “to dance between realism and abstraction.”

In many of his works, there are grids on the paintings that can indicate the change or passage of time. Annarino believes that things and/or places are always the same, but change through time. There are no figures in the works but there are manmade objects and “remains"; barns, poles, houses, and roads.

Annarino’s palette was influenced by fauvism, and he primarily paints with a palette knife. His paintings begin as abstract acrylics and then are built up with layers of oil to develop the landscapes. The “holes” in his paintings add to the piece and are meant to break up the rigidness of the composition. They also represent the things that exist in the painting that you do not see; clouds, bugs, molecules, spiritual objects, and time.

June (Alyce June) Burkholder | Oil | 1980

On Permanent Loan from the Lafayette School Corporation 1999.09 Loan

Born in Westerville, Ohio, Alyce June Burkholder - known as June - graduated from Ohio State University in 1917.

During World War I, she worked for the American Red Cross before marrying C.L. Burkholder in 1920. Her husband joined Purdue University’s faculty as Assistant Chief of Horticulture , and they had one daughter. After his passing in 1957, June focused more on her artistic pursuits, having taken up painting when their daughter, Jeanne, entered high school. She briefly taught art in Lafayette, Indianapolis, and Chicago and created botanical illustrations for Purdue’s horticulture department. Specializing in floral still life, she continued painting until the age of 92 and lived to be 103.

Burkholder exhibited at the Hoosier Salon in Indianapolis for over 20 years, from 1942 to 1966, and served as president of the Lafayette Art Center Board (now the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette) from 1945 to 1947. Her work was also displayed at the Indiana Artists Club, the John Herron Art Museum, the Sheldon Swope Museum of Art, and Indiana University.

She studied under the following instructors: Jacques Villon at the Fontainebleau School, V.J. Cariani and L.O. Griffith in Nashville, Indiana, Sister Rufinia in Lafayette, Arnold Tuttle in Chicago, Robert Brackman in New York, and Jerry Farnsworth in Sarasota, Florida.

Bonnie Zimmer | Natural and Salvaged Materials Mounted on Cotton with Waxed Linen Thread | 2018

Purchase from the Connie and Richard Grace Collection Fund 2018.10

Bonnie is a lifelong artist, teacher, arts activist, and resident of northwest Indiana. She has lived in Rensselear, Indiana for over three decades with her husband Bill and now grown, three children.

Over the years she has taught art in the public schools at all levels. Now Professor Emeritus of Art, she retired from Saint Joseph’s College in May 2016 where she was an Associate Professor of Art and chair of the Art Department. Also a committed artist, she has made art “whenever she could,” exhibiting nationally. She has also lived up to her commitment to service and the importance of have “art” in her rural community by taking a strong leadership role.

In discussing her work, Bonnie states, “Nearly all of my work is created with natural and found materials “harvest” from the fields, woods, and roadsides near my rural home. By limiting myself to local objects and materials to which I have a deep connection, I’ve discovered my ideal media for exploring my sense of place and finding meaning. My work is informed by a number of influence including my background in textiles and Native American basket makers with their exquisite baskets and reverence for nature. My work also references our material culture and our attitudes about nature and our resources and invites viewers to take a closer look at what we (over) consume and carelessly discard.”

This is the largest improvisational assemblage that Zimmer has created. She states, “This assemblage celebrates the legacy and bounty of reclaimed materials combined with carefully selected natural materials to create a perfect visual balance.”