In honor of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, UT’s McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture will feature several Olympic-themed bronzes of speed skaters and figure skaters from the museum’s Joseph B. Wolffe Collection.
The display, which goes up today, the first day of Winter Olympics competition, will be on view through February 24. It highlights the art of Robert Tait McKenzie, a physician and director of physical education who combined his love of sports and art in a career as a sculptor.
Joseph B. Wolffe was a physician in Germantown, Pennsylvania. As one of the founders of the American College of Sports Medicine, he shared with McKenzie the belief in the use of exercise and sport as a tool for preventative medicine. Over a twenty-five-year period, Wolffe assembled a collection of more than a hundred bronze statuettes, sketches, bas-reliefs, medals and plaques by McKenzie. They were donated to UT and made their way into the museum’s collections.
The McClung Museum is located at 1327 Circle Park Drive. Museum admission is free, and the museum’s hours are 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday to Saturday and 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. on Sundays. Free two-hour museum parking passes are available from the parking information building at the entrance to Circle Park Drive on the weekdays. Free parking is available on Circle Park Drive on a first-come, first-served basis on weekends.
Additional parking information is available online.
For more information about the McClung Museum and its collections and exhibits, visit the website.
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CONTACTS:
Debbie Woodiel (865-974-2144, woodield@utk.edu)
Catherine Shteynberg (865-974-6921, cshteynb@utk.edu)