Industrial Art Exhibit Builds Up Steam Through March 5

It’s tool time at UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Design Galleries downtown, at 314 West Fourth St.  For the next month, the gallery salutes the city’s work-a-day heritage along with UC’s College of Applied Science, founded in 1828, the first school dedicated to technical education west of the Alleghenies.

The “Exhibit of Arts & Industry,” running through March 5, allows viewers a glimpse into how Cincinnati worked and learned from the late 19th century onward.  It includes a functional 1887 steam engine model used to train youth in the repair and operation of the “latest” in steam-engine technology.  Explained Maria Kreppel, professor of English and Communications at CAS, “Cincinnati was a center for the design and maintenance of steam boats.  It was the place to stop for expertise.” 

Other features of the exhibit: 

• Historic photos and an industrial/college timeline extending 100 feet, telling the history of CAS and Cincinnati

• Milling machine blueprints from the 1890s, recalling the city’s importance as a machine tool maker 

• Colorful – one might even call them gaudy – 19th-century posters, tributes to the industrial expositions held in the city from 1870 to 1888.  These exhibits drew hundreds of thousands of visitors and led to the construction of Music Hall, which then housed the expositions.

• 19th-century surveying equipment as well as a turn-of-the-century carpenter's workbench and planers

• Three student drafting tables – from 1900, 1960 and 2003 – along with student drawings from World War II onward

It’s appropriate that CAS should mark its 175th anniversary year with an exhibit in an art gallery.  After all, the CAS founding as the Ohio Mechanics Institute – housing both and industrial and an art school – engendered the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Art Academy. 

The “Exhibit of Arts & Industry” is free and open to the public 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Saturday.  It is open at other times by appointment, and groups touring or meeting in the space include professionals from the construction and information technology industries as well as architects, educators and school groups.  The exhibit closes on March 5. 

To arrange group reservations in the gallery space during the exhibit, visit the CAS 175th anniversary Web site.  Or, call 513-556-6529.  For directions or other information, visit 175th Web site, or call the gallery