The Cedar Rapids Gallery of Art has selected 125 works to be on display for a 125th anniversary exhibit, reports the Gazette. That will go through mid-January.
Among the works is a big one I didn’t know about, “Symphony of Iowa 1833-1933” by Mildred Pelzer. It is a view of Iowa from above, depicting the state’s natural beauty and people who lived here past and then-present. There is a high-resolution view available. It reminds me of the collages that were popular in the 1970s and 1980s that cities would make as fundraisers, depicting businesses, important buildings, and landmarks.
Some of the most visible features in the work, the bridges across the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, bear little resemblance to those of the time, especially those that opened in the early 1930s and may have been just a little too late. The big cities have some recognizable buildings, but most of the small towns have generic church steeples.
Tama County is represented, as usual, by the Indian settlement. Grundy Center has Herbert Quick and Vinton appears. Beyond that, look for the following:
Muscatine button factory, Clinton lumber mill, three components of the Spirit Lake Massacre (Inkpaduta himself, the massacre site, and men “to the rescue”), Dillon’s Furrow (the original trail between Iowa City and Dubuque), Mormon handcarts, Mormon Trail, early stage route, Lincoln Highway, Abraham Lincoln, Fort Atkinson, Fort Peterson, ISU Campanile, “Slovak-Bohemian Peoples”, “Wakon”, “Wappelo”, a sailboat, Chicago & North Western Railroad, and the P.E.O. Sisterhood organization.
