Professor to discuss Middeldorf collection at IU Art Museum

Bruce Cole, professor emeritus of comparative literature, will speak at 4 p.m. today in the Thomas T. Solley Atrium at the IU Art Museum.

His lecture, titled “Ulrich Middeldorf Remembered,” will address the publication “Medals and Plaquettes in the Ulrich Middeldorf Collection at the Indiana University Art Museum” by Arne Flaten.

Cole will discuss his friendship with Middeldorf, a leading scholar, collector of renaissance medals and famous art historian, as well as his medal collection.

Donated to the museum in 1987, the medals feature portraits on one side and personal devices such as mottos on the other.

The medals were made to commemorate important events, deaths and marriages of influential people and valued artistic commissions.

More than 350 medals and plaquettes exist in Middeldorf’s collection.

Adelheid Gealt, director of the museum, was once a student of Cole’s.

“He encouraged me to look at new things, overlooked things and explore the undiscovered,” Gealt said. “I’m still doing that and so are all his students.” 

Gealt studied with Cole in Florence, Italy, where the two of them met Middeldorf.

Cole befriended Middeldorf and stayed friends for many years, leading Middeldorf’s wife to donate her husband’s collection to the museum years later.

“I got to know the Middeldorfs as well,” Gealt said.  “It was a friendship that led to another friendship, ultimately leading to a real confidence in Indiana University as a home for what they believed to be the best place for the collection’s future use.”

Cole’s lecture at the museum pays tribute to the publication written about Middeldorf’s collection.

Linda Baden, associate director of editorial and marketing services at the museum, said she would like the lecture to promote the publication and spread awareness of the medals.

“People all over the world will be able to see that we have the collection, see the beautiful color photographs and really good descriptions, and get to know the stories of the medals,” she said.

Gealt said she hopes to see a large turn out of students and scholars at the lecture.

“I would imagine that students will find it interesting, because what they get a chance to see are artifacts that celebrate individuals,” Gealt said. “We think of ourselves as individuals first, and then we think of ourselves as members of a family, and maybe then we think of ourselves as members of a community. This value that we place on the individual, which immerges in the renaissance, has even greater expression in the 18th century.”

She said she hopes students will give what they learn at the lecture some thought.

“I hope they’ll realize that the way they understand themselves as individuals is attributed to this,” Gealt said. "The 18th century was the true heir to the renaissance, so all of us are building on this kind of awareness that comes out of the sensibilities that these medals express.”

A reception and book signing will follow the lecture.
 
“It will be enjoyable, even if you don’t know anything about medals or Ulrich Middeldorf,” Baden said.

The publication “Medals and Plaquettes in the Ulrich Middeldorf Collection at the Indiana University Art Museum” is available for purchase at the IU Art Museum Gift Shop or online at iupress.indiana.edu.

“People can come and visit the collection anytime, but this is a moment we’re taking and celebrating this one particular aspect of the collection,” Gealt said.