World War II memorabilia, talks at FSU fine arts museum

World War II memorabilia, talks at FSU fine arts museum

"A nightgown made from a parachute. Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Mauldin’s cartoons. Hundreds of photos of Japan just after the war. Reading wartime love letters on Valentine’s Day. An author whose babysitter was Anne Frank; another author talking about military training at historically black colleges and universities.
Alert Dad, Grandpa and all your friends who are World War II buffs: They’ll want to visit the Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts this weekend.
The museum, in conjunction with FSU’s Institute on World War II and the Human Experience, is opening an exhibit of World War II memorabilia and hosting a first-ever “Writers’ Weekend” of talks by authors of World War II-related works.
The exhibit, spread over both floors of the museum, will be on display through March 29. Admission is free.
The weekend kicks off Thursday evening with a Tom Brokaw-narrated 3D film about D-Day, includes a reading of love letters sent during the war on Saturday — Valentine’s Day — and features an array of World War II photos, posters, flags, documents and artifacts.
“We’ve had such (multi-faceted) events in the past, but not often,” said Allys Palladino-Craig, executive director of FSU’s Museum of Fine Arts. “I think it’s going to be spectacular.”
About half the exhibit comes from the collections of FSU’s World War II institute. The centerpiece is “Witness To War,” a collection of photos first displayed in 2013 at the FSU-owned Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota. The institute’s contributions also include artifacts, such as Japanese naval binoculars and a Japanese air raid megaphone, plus a recent acquisition: the Oliver Austin Collection of 35 millimeter color slides. The collection consists of more than 1,000 slides taken in Japan shortly after the war ended; dozens will be shown on constant rotation during the exhibit.
The other half of the exhibit is a pair of collections on loan from Patrick Rowe, a recently retired professor of art history at Pensacola College. Rowe loaned his collection of cartoons and drawings by Mauldin, the World War II military cartoonist. He has loaned an exhibit called the “Design of War,” featuring World War II propaganda posters and flags.
Rowe earned his Ph.D. in art history at FSU in 1989 and has worked as an archaeologist. A decade ago, he began collecting art and staging exhibitions, notably shows of French artist Honoré Daumier’s work. Rowe has also loaned the exhibit one of the most unique items of memorabilia: a nightgown made for his mother out of the parachute worn by his father, a World War II pilot.
“This all has to do with my love of art and trying to share art with people,” said Rowe, 64. “These (two World War II exhibits) especially were created to bring awareness to the contribution made on the part of veterans for the free world.”
FSU’s Institute on World War II and the Human Experience was founded in 1997. William Oldson, who died in October 2014, ran the institute from its inception until his retirement in 2011. His successor is Kurt Piehler.
Housed in the Bellamy Building, the institute has 8,000 collections of documents, letters, photos and memorabilia, donated by World War II veterans from all 50 states. Though other universities have archives and museums dedicated to war, FSU is one of a handful that focuses only on World War II.
“We are one of the largest at a public or private university that focuses on World War II,” Piehler said. “We’re not a museum, we’re an archive. We’re really there to serve scholars, students and (researchers in) the general public. This exhibit will highlight all the things we collect.”
The opening of the exhibit is being highlighted with a Writers’ Weekend. Seven authors will give talks on Saturday and Sunday. The authors include FSU history professors Annika Culver, Robert Gellately and Whitney Bendeck. The out-of-town authors include Citadel professor Marcus Cox, whose book “Segregated Soldiers,” tells of the wartime training of soldiers at HBCUs and author Pieter Kohnstam, who was babysat by Anne Frank as a boy, and whose family escaped the Holocaust in a year-long flight from Holland.
Wartime love letters sent by soldiers and sailors will be read between talks Saturday, Valentine’s Day.
“I’ve been wanting to do a writing workshop and book fair and this was a good idea to encourage out of town visitors to come see the exhibit and have something else to do,” Piehler said. “I’m hoping to make it an annual event.”

FSU Museum of Fine Arts
Address: 530 W. Call St.
Hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Mon-Fri; 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Sat/Sun (closed during spring break weekends of March 7-8 and March 14-15, though open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. during spring break week).
Parking: Metered parking on lower level Call Street garage (access from Macomb Street), 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (Mon-Friday; after 4:30 p.m. and weekends, all legal spaces available to visitors.
Admission: Free.


World War II Writers’ Weekend
THURSDAY
D-Day 3D: Normandy 1944. Film at Challenger Learning Center, 200 S. Duval St. Free tickets available starting 10 a.m. at Challenger box office.
SATURDAY
(All talks at FSU Museum of Fine Arts, 530 W. Call St., admission free)
10 a.m., Marcus Cox, “Segregated Soldiers: Military Training at Historically Black Colleges in the Jim Crow South.”
11 a.m., Nick McCall, “Pogiebait’s War: A Son’s Quest for His Father’s Wartime Life.”
1:30 p.m., Michael Neiberg, “The Blood of Free Men: The Liberation of Paris, 1944.”
3 p.m., Annika Culver, “Glorify the Empire: Japanese Avant-Garde Propaganda in Manchukuo” and “Motherhood and War.”
SUNDAY
1 p.m., Pieter Kohnstam, “A Chance to Live: The Liberation of Paris.”
2 p.m., Robert Gellately, “Stalin’s Curse: Battling for Communism in War and Cold War” and Backing Hitler: Consent and coercion in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945.”
3:30 p.m., Whitney Bendeck, “ ‘A’ Force: The Origins of British Deception during the Second World War.”