May 3, 2010
Two students have been named winners in a Catholic University art competition inspired by a Rembrandt etching.
Erin Quigley, a freshman from Berlin, N.J., won first place in "Fine Lines: A Student Competition" for a self-portrait painted in the style of an old master such as Rembrandt, a 17th-century Dutch painter. Quigley, a math secondary-education major who is working on an art minor, received a $100 prize.
Chosen as the winner by art department faculty, Quigley's work is on display with more than three dozen other competition submissions in CUA's Salve Regina Gallery until May 24.
Norma Canedo, a senior psychology major, won second place and $50. Canedo of Washington, D.C., created a drawing of an elephant, reminiscent of Rembrandt's own drawings of elephants.
The winning entries were among paintings, drawings and wire sculptures created by art and non-art students for the competition. Submissions also included a photograph, a plate and an architectural model.
The "Fine Lines" student competition was inspired by "Fine Lines: Discovering Rembrandt and Other Old Masters at Catholic University," the current exhibit in the May Gallery of the John K. Mullen of Denver Memorial Library. The exhibit has as its centerpiece a Rembrandt etching that was discovered in Nugent Hall by Very Rev. David M. O'Connell, C.M., shortly after he was appointed CUA's president.
The idea for the student show was conceived by Leslie Knoblauch, records management archivist, and Paul Wesley Bush, a doctoral candidate in medieval history, who curated the May Gallery exhibit.
"Our faculty found it valuable to have students create art around a theme," said Nora Heimann, chair of the Department of Art. She hopes to have the student art competition again next year.
The competition's prize money was donated by Heimann's brother and sister-in-law - CUA alumni Christopher Heimann (B.A. 1983, M.A. 1986) and Cynthia Aivalis Heimann (B.S. 1984) - in memory of their mother Jeanne M. Heimann, a potter, who died last year.
"My mother loved art," Nora Heimann said. "Even more, she loved encouraging children and young adults to appreciate art, which is what we hope this student art competition did."
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