Baghdad and Beyond: Drawings by Steve Mumford
September 8—November 19 , 2006
Koppelman Gallery

Opening Reception: Friday, September 8, 6:00–8:30pm
Artist Talk and Reception: Thursday, November 2, 6:00pm
Co-sponsored by the Jonathan M. Tisch College for Citizenship and Public Service; the Institute for Global Leadership; and the Tufts University Office of Alumni Relations


During four trips to Iraq in 2003 and 2004, and with journalistic credentials from the website artnet.com, Steve Mumford traveled with army units to Baghdad and seven other cities in Iraq, producing drawings and written accounts that were posted on the site. “Baghdad Journal” is now also in book form, published by Drawn & Quarterly in 2005. In 2006, Mumford spent three days at Brooke Army Medical Center drawing portraits of disabled Iraqi War veterans. These drawings are featured in the July issue of Harper’s Magazine.

A graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston with a BFA in 1986 (he completed their Fifth-Year Certificate Program in 1987 and has an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York), and a Boston native, Mumford revives a great tradition of combat art characterized by Winslow Homer’s Civil War paintings. The instantaneous and documentary nature of photo-journalism that defines most of our visuals of Iraq is replaced by lingering lapses of time that expressively capture mood and atmosphere more than precise events. Mumford strives to maintain a camera-like objectivity about the politics of the war while providing an artist’s humanistic view of the individuals engaged in that war.

The Tufts University Art Gallery exhibition will feature 41 watercolor and sepia drawings from the “Baghdad Journal” series and 8 watercolors from Mumford’s trip to Brooke Army Medical Center. These will be exhibited for the first time together and for the first time in Boston.