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At the end of June, a small army of Chazen museum staff, local specialists, and French workers collaborated to make sure that iconic American artist Jim Dine’ s monumental new mural— created just for the Chazen— found its way to a permanent home in Brittingham Gallery I. The four-panel mural, which runs about 80 feet end-to-end, was unveiled in situ, June 22 to an appreciative crowd, but it was many years in the making.

“ In the early’ 90s, the Madison Art Center did an exhibit of Jim’ s drawings from the ancient sculptures in the Glyptothek in Munich,” says Chazen Director Russell Panczenko.“ As a classics major myself, I just loved these drawings, I thought they were fantastic. While ruminating on that, I thought, although modest, we have a collection of ancient art. Wouldn’ t it be great if we had Jim do something,

Dine wanted a surface without joins or seams.“ We finally went to Jim’ s canvas maker in Paris, and he said, yes, he could do it,” says Panczenko.“ Jim has a studio in Paris and he loves to work there, so that was decided.”

In Madison, a high-definition, 3-D scanner created a computer model of the entire gallery— accurate to within a millimeter— to provide measurements for the canvas maker.

“ The stretchers have to be light, so they had to have aluminum bracing, but they have to be rigid so he can work on them,” says Panczenko. It took several months to get the canvases done to specification, and when they were delivered to the studio, Dine started working.

Back in Madison, extraordinary planning was

some kind of a mural, based on these drawings.”

underway. The staff at the Chazen invited the experts

Dine and Panzcenko discussed the idea from time to time after that; Dine’ s association with Tandem Press and the Chazen Museum of Art goes back many years. Finally, the time was right, and shortly after Dine’ s 2014 exhibition at the Chazen, planning for the mural got underway.

at Reynolds Transfer and Storage to decide how the crated panels could safely get through the museum into Gallery I. The solution required special equipment, skilled art handlers, and temporary de-installation of several galleries in both buildings of the museum. Dine’ s assistants from Paris and Walla Walla, Wash., travelled to the Chazen to consult with

“ We couldn’ t work directly on the ceiling,” said

preparators, art handlers, and an engineer, to make

Panczenko.“ If something happens to the building,

sure the hanging system would be sound. The entire

we should be able to take [ the panels ] down and

installation process took over two weeks. The mural

RIGHT: Russell Panczenko

move them.”

is now part of the Chazen’ s permanent collection.