Discovery Through Retrospection

Helping Sioux Falls art students connect to the larger art world was the primary promise at the start of the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery’s existence, and decades later this initial vision from campus legend Carl Grupp still comes to bear with each patron who walks through the doors of the Augustana University Center for Visual Arts (CVA).

Dr. Lindsay Twa

Augustana professor and one-time department chair Grupp’s own tenure at then Augustana College in the 1960s began as he built the printmaking program on campus, culminating in the founding of this institution of a gallery that has called a few structures home through the years.

“In the late 1960s he started hosting exhibitions in what was then our Old Main building, then the Commons and then eventually it found its own building — a former married student housing space,” according to current gallery director Dr. Lindsay Twa, who has been on campus since 2006, around the time Augustana opened its new CVA facility. “He was kind of a one-man show and along with a couple of students decided on Eide/Dalrymple in honor of the two founders of the Augustana art department.”

Grupp’s national reach as an artist in his own right helped to establish a national reach for the Sioux Falls arts community, which at the time was limited on commercial exhibition space.

“He was going all over the country to get shows and bring them in, with the idea that, to be an art program and to be at the heart of the arts in Sioux Falls, we needed to bring work to the campus and to the community,” Twa said. “His primary goal was to first and foremost expose the students to a much more contemporary dialogue of what was going on in the art world, but also to be a resource for the community to meet artists, see what they were doing and see original artwork in person.

“In many ways, it’s still the heart and the philosophy of the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery today.”

The space plays host to seven to nine exhibitions each year, which Twa cites as a more active schedule than most for a university gallery space of Augustana’s size. This lineup traditionally includes a summer student invitational that showcases the work of the university’s own student artists.

“By bringing in additional voices to our greater community, as a non-commercial space, we’re not bound to select things that sell, for example,” Twa said of the unique positioning of the Eide/Dalrymple. “The goal in putting together any exhibition season is that we represent all of the different areas that we teach here at Augustana, to intersect with what students are learning in the classroom.”

Recent showcases have included work from renowned political cartoonists, photography exploring the journey of infertility, fabric and textile work and multimedia installations.

“We want to balance it between early career artists and the artists who are more established,” Twa said of the variety of exhibitions. “We also want to have a nice mix of local and regional and those with a bigger national footprint.”

This model provides even greater exposure for students who might have an interest in developing their skills in a gallery operational setting.

“We only exhibit with an artists if they’re willing to interface with our classes,” Twa said. “They’ll come in and either do a public critique or gallery talks or workshop with our students.”

In addition to classroom methodology, students are given three professional exhibition opportunities throughout the gallery in their time at Augustana. And Twa cited between 35 to 40 students who are consistently working in the gallery as monitors and volunteers.

The Eide/Dalrymple Gallery hosts an alumni exhibition as part of Augustana University’s 100th anniversary of Vikings Days in 2023. (Submitted Photo)

“They’re trained at interfacing and acting as docents and gallery greeters. And then we also have a team of work-study students that go further than that and help us with our exhibition cataloging projects.”

Another hallmark of Grupp’s tenure is Austana’s permanent collection, which includes more than 4,000 objects, a factor that provides those studying art a more tangible exposure to a wide breadth of work.

“Our students are getting hands-on experience in cataloging, archiving, preparing for exhibition,” Twa said of the collection, which ranges from works on paper to ethnographic objects from the Northern Plains and Oceania. “One of our earliest works on paper is a print from the late 1400s by Michael Wolgemut (…) so they can see and hold that in their hands, versus driving to, say, Minneapolis to see that.

“As an art historian, I encourage studio students to understand the entire history of art. Their teachers are both their faculty members but also those who have gone before them.”

Twa’s own background includes degrees in art history from the University of North Carolina — Chapel Hill, in addition to past lives as an art framer and interning at the Ackland Art Museum.

“I was able to actually curate my very first exhibition during that time,” she said. “But I also moved and interacted with everyone in the museum. I wanted to learn everything about their job skills.” 

That desire to be both historian and museum curator presented a unique opportunity once Augustana came on Twa’s radar. “They were looking for someone who could be both teacher of art history curriculum and also run the gallery, using a lot of the skills I’d been shadowing for so long. I guess my curiosity and wanting to know it all paid off.”

The permanent collection not only is accessible to students, but instructors are also able to request objects to bring into their classrooms and the public can request appointment viewings, as well.

“There something about getting your face close to an object to actually see how that material was made, what that artist was thinking of and how you might actually use it in your own materials going forward in your practice,” Twa said. “I think it’s just invaluable to interact directly with objects, especially early-career artists who are gaining in their skill.”

The unique depth of variety of pieces housed at Augustana include 187 photographs by Andy Warhol, including Polaroids and gelatin silver prints. The university has been selected twice as a recipient by the Andy Warhol Foundation.

“I want to make sure that people understand that Augustana is outward-facing,” Twa said. “We want to make sure the community knows that the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery is for Sioux Falls. We’re free and open to the public

“Our exhibitions can often bring a really challenging, important conversation. But when you engage with it, sometimes it opens up dialogues in different ways that might be more accessible than other routes.”

Discover what the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery is currently exhibiting and what’s next on their schedule on the Augustana University website.