Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The University of Iowa's Museum of Art staff members will move back into their old offices in the nearly half-century-old riverside building that was flooded in 2008. But the university's art collection will not be following.
With the planned opening of a new Arts Building East on campus, the museum staff and studio arts programs will be moving back to campus starting in May, the Iowa City Press-Citizen reported (http://icp-c.com/1nFmi9P ) Saturday.
Since shortly after the flood, the art museum staff has made its temporary headquarters in UI Studio Arts, a renovated hardware and home improvement store nearly 3 miles from campus.
The old museum building was not damaged enough by the flood to warrant its demolition. But insurance companies have refused to cover any artwork stored or displayed in the flood-prone structure, university officials said.
Museum director Sean O'Harrow said the administration is considering several on-campus options for a new museum facility. In the meantime, staff will be working to bring more of the university's 14,000-piece art collection back to campus — but in places other than the old museum building.
Only between 2,000 and 3,000 of those pieces of art are currently on campus through gallery spaces in the Iowa Memorial Union, O'Harrow said. Nearly all of the rest of the collection is being stored in Davenport at the Figge Art Museum, where O'Harrow is a former director.
Earlier this week, the university announced it had dropped a planned public-private partnership for construction of a new Museum of Art building on a major downtown Iowa City intersection.
___
Information from: Iowa City Press-Citizen, http://www.press-citizen.com/
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
