When the 1950 Harvey Dunn exhibit closed in De Smet, the artist, his son Bob, and SDSU staff member Woodrow Wentzy drove the collection of paintings to South Dakota State College in Brookings. The artist supervised the arrangement of the paintings on the walls of the Pugsley Student Union. They remained on display there from 1950 to the opening of the South Dakota Memorial Art Center in May 1970. The Union Manager, Harlan R. Olson, was the first caretaker of the collection and became a Dunn aficionado.
Students from the 1950s and 60s remember studying, watching TV and attending gatherings in the student union lounge adorned with Harvey Dunn paintings. Many have noted that smoking was common in the lounge. A letter from longtime SDSU Art Professor Madeline Ritz to Dunn student, Steven R. Kidd, illustrates the odd arrangement of having a “gallery” in a student union, resulting in funny circumstances...and ultimately to the building of the art museum. You can read the letter in the slider below.
Learn more about Harvey Dunn and the Harvey Dunn Collection. To see images from the complete collection visit ALL DUNN: The Complete Harvey Dunn Collection exhibition.
Pugsley Student Union lounge, circa 1965
Harvey Dunn's "The Prairie is My Garden" is hung at the end of the room along with many other beloved Dunn paintings.
Image: South Dakota State University Digital Archives.
Pugsley Student Union lounge, circa 1965
Harvey Dunn's "Battleground (The Refugee)" hangs at the end of the room.
Image: South Dakota State University Digital Archives.
Pugsley Student Union, circa 1965
Paintings from Harvey Dunn's war works hang here.
Image: South Dakota State University Digital Archives.
Pugsley Student Union, circa 1965
Harvey Dunn works shown here include "Something for Supper" and "Jedediah Smith in the Badlands."
Image: South Dakota State University Digital Archives.
Pugsley Student Union, circa 1965
Many Harvey Dunn paintings, including "After School" and "Just a Few Drops of Rain."
Image: South Dakota State University Digital Archives.
Pugsley Student Union, circa 1965
"Bringing Home the Bride" hangs behind unidentified students, circa 1965.
Image: South Dakota State University Digital Archives.
Pugsley Student Union, circa 1965
Harvey Dunn paintings (l-r) "Meeting With the Chief," "The Liberator," and "Settlers in Canada"
Image: South Dakota State University Digital Archives.
Pugsley Student Union, circa 1965
Harvey Dunn paintings here include "Woman at the Pump" and "A Driver of Oxen."
Pugsley Student Union, circa 1965
Harvey Dunn paintings include "Fall Landscape" and "30 Below."
Image: South Dakota State University Digital Archives.
1956 letter from Madeline Ritz to Steven Kidd highlighting the incompatibility of student lounge use with "art gallery" tours.
South Dakota State University President Hilton M. Briggs and Pugsley Union Manager Harlan R. Olson examine Harvey Dunn’s easel on display in the union.
Image: South Dakota Art Museum Archives.
Pugsley Union Manager Harlan R. Olson and Harvey Dunn’s "The Prairie is My Garden."
Image: South Dakota State University Archives.
