TEMPE, AZ.- The ASU Art Museum presents Turning Point: Inspired by the Edward Jacobson Collection of Turned Wood Bowls, on view through August 12, 2006. Noted Phoenix collector and attorney Edward “Bud” Jacobson assembled one of the first comprehensive collections of turned wood bowls by contemporary American artists. Reviewed in the New York Times, the collection traveled internationally and was the subject of one of the first books in the field. The exhibition tour, book and media coverage brought about a broad recognition of turned wood objects as art, rather than household objects, made by professional artists rather than hobbyists.

The Jacobson Collection continues to be recognized as a benchmark although artists and approaches have multiplied. Turning Point: Inspired by the Edward Jacobson Collection of Turned Wood Bowls features selections from the original collection of 100 vessels generously given to the ASU Art Museum in 1989. Alongside the turned wood bowls are contemporary pieces in wood collected in the 16 years since the gift. Ranging from chairs to sculpture, the broader collection represents the range of approaches artists take when working with wood, and recognizes the legacy of the Jacobson Collection in creating this emphasis at the ASU Art Museum.

Jacobson began collecting in 1977, at a time of great innovation and growth in the field. During a regular visit to the Scottsdale art galleries, he visited the Hand and the Spirit Gallery owned by Joanne Rapp. He admired and ultimately purchased a tiger-striped Georgia pine bowl by Ed Moulthrop. For someone who was collecting paintings and works on paper by twentieth-century masters, it was an impulse purchase. It led Jacobson to seek other works, beginning with recommendations from Moulthrop, whose work is in this exhibition. Following one artist referral after another, Jacobson accumulated the collection in about seven years.

Jacobson consciously set out to acquire the “very best of the very best North American turners.” He charted the field in the late 1970s and early ‘80s when there was a growing diversity of technique, materials and ideas. Vessel forms dominate the collection but Jacobson also collected the sculptural. And while he favored works that explored the natural beauty of wood, Jacobson collected some of the innovators in surface design and painting as well.

The Jacobson Collection influenced the ASU Art Museum’s collecting and exhibiting practices. Since the early 1990s, the Museum has mounted a series of exhibitions focused on innovations in turning and contemporary art in wood. Through generous donations from collectors and foundations, the Museum has continued to collect works by artists in the Jacobson Collection while extending to match developments in the field. This exhibition includes sculpture, vessels and furniture; turning, carving and a variety of techniques; painted and adorned works; and representation by the growing number of women artists.