Over the past couple of months, it has been beyond words to see our campus come back to life.
After a two-year project, Swartz Hall finally opened and HDS students, faculty, and staff reunited in a renewed building after 18 months apart.
While the building project is complete, there are still some finishing touches our operations staff is taking care of to make the building feel like the true center of the School.
One of those items is the installation of artwork—including some brand-new pieces we are excited to have on display.
Two custom rugs based on the design of Gee’s Bend quilts now hang in Swartz Hall. Gee’s Bend, Alabama, is where descendants of enslaved women have continued the quilting traditions passed down for generations. Originally done out of a physical need for warmth, the quilting style has evolved as a way for African American women from the Gee’s Bend area to gain economic independence. The quilts have been sold throughout the United States and have been displayed as works of art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and others.
The rugs on display here were acquired from a company that has a partnership with the quilters of Gee’s Bend. The quilters copyright their own designs and receive a royalty for every rug sold.
“Crazy Quilt” by Loretta Pettway is on display on the ground floor of Swartz Hall just past the HDS Commons café.
“Work Clothes,” also by Pettway, is displayed outside the entrance to the James Room. The room is named for the James Family, generous donors to the renewal. Ralph James serves on the HDS Dean’s Council. His parents, Ardis and Robert James, were passionate quilt collectors for decades, and Ardis made quilts herself. It’s meaningful connections like these that really bring life to the Swartz Hall renewal.
Another meaningful connection can be found in the main hallway of the first floor of Swartz Hall. On display near the Sperry Room is another new piece of art. “Heaven” was created by Susan Shallcross Swartz. A gift from Susan and her husband, James R. Swartz, helped make the Swartz Hall renewal a reality.
Speaking about the painting during an event when she was artist-in-residence at HDS, Susan said nothing had challenged her as much as painting “Heaven.” In a 2011 issue of Harvard Divinity Bulletin, former HDS Dean William A. Graham wrote that “When we contemplate Swartz’s abstract visions in ‘Afterglow’ and ‘Heaven,’ or her more naturalistic ‘Amazing Grace’ and the ‘Autumn’s Bounty’ triptych, ‘revelatory’ does not seem an out-of-place attribute…”
I couldn’t agree more, and am happy we have this piece to welcome and inspire all visitors to Swartz Hall.
What’s also inspiring to see is the portrait of Preston N. Williams, the Houghton Professor of Theology and Contemporary Change Emeritus, gracing the walls of Swartz Hall again. Prior to the renewal, Williams’s portrait was on display in the Braun Room. With the renaming of the chapel to the Preston N. Williams Chapel, the portrait was moved and is now hung just outside the chapel doors. Williams was the first tenured African American faculty member of HDS and the first to lead the School as acting dean from 1974 to 1975.
Also near the Williams Chapel, on the second floor landing of the building’s center staircase, the original painting, “Caballero Águila,” or “Eagle Warrior,” was reinstalled. This piece by celebrated Mexican-American artist George Yepes was commissioned to honor Professor Eduardo Matos Moctezuma and symbolize the Harvard lecture series named for him. The painting is inspired by images related to Matos’ work at the Templo Mayor, which revolutionized the understanding of the religious and political character of the Aztec empire. The original painting was acquired by Harvard Divinity School and unveiled in 2018.
With members of the HDS community back together on campus and all of these amazing pieces on display throughout the renewed Swartz Hall, the building is finally feeling very much alive. It’s a good feeling.
—Mark