A portrait of metalsmithing and jewelry design pioneer Alma Eikerman will be dedicated to the Women of Indiana University Portrait Collection during an unveiling ceremony Friday, April 22. Eikerman (1908-95) built IU’s Metalsmithing and Jewelry Design area into one of the nation’s premier programs over her three decades at the university, while her own work was featured in over 200 exhibitions around the world during her lifetime.
The oil painting of Eikerman by Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design Professor Emerita Bonnie Sklarski joins a collection of portraits of prominent women at IU, including the first female trustee, first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economic Science, and the first Black woman to graduate from IU. The painting was commissioned in 2021. Although the portrait is posthumous, as a new faculty member Sklarski worked alongside Eikerman, and the artists became friends.
The event, which is open to the public, begins at 1 p.m. in the East Lounge in the Indiana Memorial Union (in the mezzanine above the Biddle Hotel lobby) where the collection enjoys a rotating exhibition. Sklarski will be one of several speakers at Friday’s event, which will also feature remarks by Eskenazi School Founding Dean and Professor Peg Faimon, Metalsmithing and Jewelry Design Professor and Area Coordinator Nicole Jacquard, Associate Director of Campus Art Katie Chattin, and Eskenazi alum Susan Ewing, Distinguished Professor of Art Emerita at the College of Creative Arts, Miami University.
“Alma Eikerman’s vision of the complete metalsmith – creative, technically competent, knowledgeable of history and art history, comfortable with aesthetic ideas, hardworking, and professional – made the IU metals program unique,” wrote Constance L. Bowen in the catalogue for the 1985 exhibition “Reflections: A Tribute to Alma Eikerman Master Craftsman” at the Eskenazi Museum of Art.
Eikerman’s work was featured in the groundbreaking 1969 show “Objects: USA” at the Smithsonian, which traveled to 25 states and 11 European countries, and in the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York, among many other significant museum shows. Eikerman received grants from the Carnegie Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts and was an early member of the Society of North American Goldsmiths. Extolled for her teaching, Eikerman was appointed Distinguished Professor at IU in 1976 and in 1981 received the Distinguished Teaching Award from IU College of Arts and Sciences Graduate School Alumni Association. She received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Miami University in 1986, the American Craft Council’s Gold Medal in 1993, and the Indiana Governor’s Art Award in 1993.
A Kansas native, Eikerman earned degrees from Kansas State College (BS, 1934) and Columbia University (MS, 1942), taught in Kansas public schools and at Wichita State University, and spent time in Europe working under several master craftspeople and serving in the Red Cross during World War 2. Upon joining the IU Bloomington fine arts faculty in 1947, she grew the school’s jewelry department when there were very few comparable university programs in the country.
The professor is remembered for her devotion to her students and her endless pursuit of artisanal knowledge through apprenticeships with artists around the world, including Karl Gustav Hansen and Henrick Boesen in Denmark, Erik Fleming in Stockholm, Michael Wiler in Munich, and Ossip Zadkine in Paris. Among the techniques acquired during her European sojourns, Eikerman notably conveyed her mastery of holloware to her students at IU. Eikerman’s legacy includes many renowned metalsmiths and jewelry designers who studied with her, including Helen Shirk, Marjorie Schick, Cinthia Eid, Lin Stanionis, Marilyn and Jack Da Silva, Kathy Buszkiewicz, Darlys Ewoldt, Reiko Ichimura, Richard Mafong, Komelia Okim, Douglas Steakley, Ewing, and Jacquard.
“If you are in the field of metalsmithing in the US,” Jacquard reflected, “I wonder how many degrees away you are from Alma?”
About the Portraitist
Bonnie Sklarski is professor emerita of fine arts in the IU Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design. She holds a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA from Brooklyn College. Her work has been exhibited in New York City, Philadelphia, and multiple galleries around the country. At IU Bloomington her paintings of the school motto, Lux et Veritas are permanently installed in Franklin Hall and her painting of Nobel Prize recipient Elinor Ostrom is part of the “Women of Indiana University” portrait collection in the Indiana Memorial Union. Indiana University has honored Sklarski with the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1998 and the Bicentennial Medal in 2020.
About the Commission
The portrait was commissioned as part of the Bridging the Visibility Gap Initiative, which is a legacy program of IU’s Bicentennial Celebration and is administered by the Office of the President. Through research and advocacy, this program identifies overlooked individuals who made significant contributions to IU, the state, the nation, or the world, and adds them to IU’s historical narrative and the built environment. The commission was made possible through financial support by Ann Harrison and the IU Women’s Philanthropy Visibility Fund spearheaded by the Indiana University Foundation Women’s Philanthropy Leadership Council.
Sources:
https://www.timecapsule-iu.com/alma-eikerman
https://www.craftcouncil.org/recognition/alma-eikerman
https://limestonepostmagazine.com/alma-eikermans-legacy-still-inspires-metalsmiths-jewelry-designers/
https://blogs.iu.edu/bicentennialblogs/2017/11/29/the-untold-stories-of-may-wright-sewall-and-alma-eikerman/
