Forms of Remembrance: The Unknown Political Prisoner

This exhibition centers on Christian Petersen's Unknown Political Prisoner maquette — the entry he submitted to a 1952 international competition organized by the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, which sought a sculpture honoring those imprisoned or killed in the struggle for human freedom. On view alongside it are related drawings and sculptures that trace how Petersen's thinking evolved in his later years: away from patriotic celebration and toward something heavier — loss, mourning, the grief of those left behind. He developed numerous proposals for war memorials during this period, none of which were realized in his lifetime.

The exhibition also includes works of art from the era that shaped him: editorial cartoonist Frank Miller's I Said—We Sure Settled That Dispute, Didn't We? and two World War II propaganda posters issued by the U.S. Office of War Information in 1943.
 

Taken together, the objects on view place Petersen's Unknown Political Prisoner within the broader arc of his artistic development and within twentieth-century American art.
 

Roy and Bobbi Reiman Public Art Studio Gallery, Ground Floor Morrill Hall

This exhibition is curated and organized by University Museums. Support was given by the Hilsinger Family Charitable Fund, Phyllis and Larry Lepke, the Estate of Lorraine Bliese (Grosse) Bruns, and University Museums Membership.