art meets world - The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum - Florida ...

JIM COUPER:
THE NEW
FROST BUILT
ON FOUNDER’s
VISION
As a visual arts professor and a painter, Jim Couper
has influenced the lives and careers of thousands of
students and art lovers for nearly 40 years. In the
course of doing his work with his characteristic passion,
and easy plain-spoken Southern style, he also achieved
one of his greatest accomplishments. Couper founded
the Frost Art Museum.
More than 30 years later, his initial
vision and direction still define the
Frost, and is arguably responsible for its
tremendous success over the years.
What was that vision?
The museum opened in 1977 as
the Visual Arts Gallery at FIU, a
2,800-square-foot gallery. (It was
renamed the Art Museum at FIU four
years later, and renamed in honor
of donors Patricia & Phillip Frost in
2003.) Couper’s focus was securing
exhibitions of work by major artists,
while building a teaching arm for the
art department.
Although his mission was also
to develop a solid link to the art
department, “the museum was never
exclusively designed conceptually to
be a student exhibition place,” Couper
said. “I insisted there be a programmatic
link between the museum and the
department. It’s a teaching component
in that sense and an educational
component in a larger sense. It’s
a critical element to the whole art
experience at FIU.”
Carol Damian, director and chief curator
at the Frost and former chairperson of
the School of Art and Art History, credits
Couper with much more.
“It was Jim Couper who had the
original vision to create a museum that
would also serve as an introduction
to a professional career in the arts,”
she said. “Students could see art,
study techniques, talk to artists and
understand the entire gallery process,
things not readily available to our
students in South Florida. They could
participate in the entire experience
of being an artist. It was really the
beginning of our very successful BFA
and MFA programs that prepare
students as artists and as qualified
members of the art world.”
Successful artist Luisa Basnuevo was
Couper’s student. His instruction and
1989 1990 1991 1992 1993
The Metropolitan Collection
Acquired by the Museum
The Cintas Fellow Collection
Exhibits at the Museum
Exhibitions:
American Art Today:
Contemporary Landscape
Critics’ Lectures:
Philippe de Montebello
Exhibitions:
American Art Today:
The City
New Aquisition:
The Metropolitan Collection
Critics Lectures:
Lucinda Barnes
Frank Stella
Exhibitions:
American Art Today:
New Directions
Contemporary
Spanish Paintings
Through the Path of Echoes:
Contemporary Art in Mexico
Critics’ Lectures:
Richard Serra
Exhibitions:
American Art Today:
Surface Tension
Cuba-USA: The First Generation
Anton Tapies In Print
Agustín Fernandez -
A Retrospective
Critics’ Lectures:
Helen Frankenthaler
Exhibitions:
American Art Today:
Clothing as Metaphor
Elaine de Kooning
Critics Lectures:
Michael Kimmelman
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