Judy Kay Collischan

Background

Judy Kay Collischan was born on October 19, 1940, in Red Wing, Minnesota, to Michael J. Collischan and Olive Amanda Sundberg Collischan. Red Wing was a regional Mississippi River community with manufacturing, agricultural, and commercial traditions that connected southeastern Minnesota to the wider Midwest.

Collischan has explained that her middle name, Kay, was suggested by her grandmother, who admired the actress Kay Francis. She later used the married professional name Judy Kay Collischan Van Wagner on several publications and exhibition projects.

Education

Collischan received a bachelor's degree from Hamline University in 1962, pursued postgraduate study at the National University of Mexico in Mexico City in 1963, earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Ohio University in 1964, and completed a Ph.D. in modern art history at the University of Iowa in 1972. Her graduate training combined studio art with the historical and critical study of modern and contemporary art.

Hamline University, founded in 1854, is a liberal-arts institution in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The National University of Mexico, established in 1910, is Mexico's principal public research university and a major center of cultural and intellectual life in Mexico City. Ohio University, founded in 1804, is one of the oldest public universities in the United States and has long combined liberal education with professional and graduate study. The University of Iowa, founded in 1847, was the first public university west of the Mississippi River and developed strong programs in the arts and humanities, including modern-art scholarship.

Career

Collischan began teaching at Kansas State University in Manhattan from 1964 to 1966. She later taught as an assistant professor at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls from 1970 to 1971 and at the University of Nebraska at Omaha from 1972 to 1975. Her university appointments placed studio and art-historical instruction within the expanding American system of public higher education after the Second World War.

She served as an associate professor at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh from 1975 to 1982. During the same period she developed a parallel career as an art critic, writing for the Waterloo Courier in 1971, the Omaha World-Herald from 1972 to 1975, and Arts magazine from 1984. These publications connected her academic work with contemporary art criticism and public discussion of exhibitions and artists.

From 1982 to 1994, Collischan was director of the Hillwood Art Museum at Long Island University's C.W. Post campus in Brookville, New York. The museum, now known as the Steinberg Museum of Art, has served the university and surrounding community through exhibitions, collections, and arts education. She also directed Long Island University's public art program from 1985 to 1994 and edited or directed the program's 1995 publication on public art.

Collischan served as an administrative director of a printmaking workshop from 1994 to 1995. Beginning in 1996, she became associate director for curatorial affairs at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York. Founded in 1969 through a major promised gift from Roy R. Neuberger, the museum developed a collection and exhibition program centered on modern, contemporary, and African art. In that role, Collischan organized exhibitions and public-art biennials, curated shows including Women of Stone and Contemporary Classicism, and contributed essays and exhibition texts.

Achievements

• Collischan directed the Hillwood Art Museum and its public art program, developing exhibitions and public-art initiatives at Long Island University's C.W. Post campus.

• As associate director for curatorial affairs at the Neuberger Museum of Art, she organized exhibitions and contributed curatorial essays on modern and contemporary art.

• She edited and directed Public art program, 1985-1995, documenting public sculpture projects associated with the Hillwood Art Museum and Long Island University.

Works

More photos

• art catalogue

  • Lines of Vision: Drawings by Contemporary Women

    (Assembled, curated, and introduced by Collischan, this vo...)

    1989

• art criticism

  • Women Shaping Art: Profiles of Power

    (A study of influential women in the American art world, i...)

    1984

• art history

  • Welded Sculpture of the Twentieth Century

    (A study of twentieth-century welded sculpture covering ap...)

    2000
  • Made in the U.S.A.: Modern / Contemporary Art in America

    (An illustrated overview of modern and contemporary art in...)

    2010

• exhibition catalogue

  • Public art program, 1985-1995

    (An illustrated catalogue documenting the Long Island Univ...)

    1995

  • Women of Stone

    (Exhibition publication for a Neuberger Museum of Art pres...)

    2000

  • Contemporary classicism

    (Exhibition catalogue curated by Collischan at the Neuberg...)

    1999

  • 1997 biennial exhibition of public art

    (Exhibition catalogue for the Neuberger Museum of Art's fi...)

    1997

  • Jazz in situ

    (Neuberger Museum of Art exhibition publication containing...)

    1998

  • 1999 biennial exhibition of public art

    (Catalogue for the Neuberger Museum of Art's second public...)

    1999

  • Marisol

    (Exhibition catalogue for the Neuberger Museum of Art pres...)

    2001

  • Mary Frank: Encounters

    (Exhibition publication for Mary Frank's work, curated by ...)

  • Glass houses: Bing Hu, Maura Sheehan and Therman Statom

    (Exhibition catalogue curated by Collischan for the Neuber...)

    1998

Views

Collischan has described art as a continuing field of activity that includes making, studying, curating, writing about, discussing, and supporting visual art. Her work as an artist and curator treats different media as vehicles for examining existence, perception, and the relationship between material form and ideas.

Her books and exhibitions show sustained attention to women artists, drawing, public art, modern sculpture, and the historical place of contemporary practice. As a curator and critic, she has connected individual works with broader questions of artistic representation, institutional presentation, and the changing status of modern and contemporary art.

Membership

Collischan was a member of the American section of the International Association of Art Critics, a professional organization connecting critics, writers, and scholars concerned with the interpretation and public discussion of art.

• Member

  International Association of Art Critics, American section , United States

Interests

• Fragrance and vernacular and mid-century photography archives

Connections

Collischan is the daughter of Michael J. Collischan and Olive Amanda Sundberg Collischan. She has one child, Brien Gray Van Wagner Collischan.

Father:

Michael J. Collischan

Mother:

Olive Amanda Sundberg Collischan

child:

Brien Gray Van Wagner Collischan

Collischan's child.

References

• Smithsonian Institution Research Information System Bibliographic records documenting Collischan's books, exhibition catalogues, curatorial work, and introductions, including Women Shaping Art, Lines of Vision, Welded Sculpture of the Twentieth Century, and Neuberger Museum of Art publications.
• Martinez Gallery Biographical account describing Collischan as a painter, mixed-media artist, writer, critic, museum director, and curator, and summarizing her education and museum career.
• Neuberger Museum of Art Institutional history and description of the museum where Collischan served as associate director for curatorial affairs.
• The Outfox blog Personal writing by Collischan containing biographical reflections, including the origin of her middle name and accounts of her interests in art, writing, and cultural history.
  2011