IOWA CONTEMPORARY ART
Special Thanks to our
ICON MEMBERS &
Corporate Sponsors:
ICON Gallery is pleased to announce the significant exhibition Anonymous
Shiva Linga Paintings: The Hudson Collection, a selection of Tantric images
made by anonymous painters from Rajasthan, India. The exhibit opens on
First Friday, March 1st. This exhibition has been made possible by the very
generous donation of the Hudson Collection to ICON’s permanent collection
by Patricia Hudson, James Hudson, and Thomas Hudson. Additional support
for the exhibition was provided by David T. Hanson, the Fairfield Cultural
Alliance and the Fairfield Convention and Visitors Bureau. This is possibly
the finest collection of Shiva linga paintings in the country. A portion of this
collection was included in the prestigious 55th Venice Biennale in 2013.
“We are extremely grateful to the Hudson Family for gifting this prized collection
to ICON,” says ICON Director Bill Teeple. “NY gallery owner Hudson passed
away in 2014. He was a friend to Fairfield and ICON. I feel that he is happy that
his personal collection has found a home at ICON.”
Each of the 67 paintings in the exhibition depicts the “Shiva linga” on a
page-size sheet of antique paper. The Sanskrit word “lingam,” originally
meaning “mark” or “sign,” often refers to the phallus or symbol of male
creative energy that is complementary to the “yoni,” which means both
“source” and “female.” Unlike sculptural “Shiva linga,” which are commonly
phallic in shape, the linga in these paintings are ovoid and accrue some of
the symbolic associations of the “egg-shaped cosmos”—the idea of the
“hiranyagarbha,” the “golden womb” or “golden egg” that represents the
birth of the cosmos and the source of all energy. The images are intended to
awaken heightened consciousness.
The French scholar André Padoux has described these images as “painted
silences, the simple revelation of pure consciousness. . . . Artless, modest in
appearance as they may seem, these lingas can induce a vision of the infinite.”
On Thursday, March 14th, University of Iowa Professor Frederick Smith,
will give a lecture “The Form of No Forms: Placing Shiva Paintings in
Context” at ICON. Professor Smith gave this lecture in Pennsylvania when
the collection toured the country in 2013.
June, July August, 2019
Geoffrey Baker Paintings
September & October, 2019
Fairfield Collects
IOWA CONTEMPORARY ART | 58 North Main Street, Fairfield, IA 52556 | 641-469-6252 | bill@icon-art.org
GALLERY HOURS: Tuesday through Thursday, 12:00 to 5:00pm, Friday and Saturday, 1:00 to 4:30pm and by appointment.
ICON is an IRS 501(c)(3) non-profit educational charity. All donations are tax-deductible.
ANONYMOUS SHIVA LINGA PAINTINGS:
THE HUDSON COLLECTION
