Art for the Ages

Art
for the Ages
Tiles in college commons represent student life at Rice

…………………………………………………………………

BY CHRIS DOW
Special to the Rice News

Anyone who has
visited the Rice campus knows that whimsical iconography
is a hallmark of Rice architecture. Undoubtedly, one of
the most playful and colorful examples is the series of
terra cotta tiles on the exteriors of Will Rice Commons
and Hanszen Commons. Created by internationally known sculptor
William M. McVey ’27 and installed in 1957, they depict
various aspects of student life at Rice in the 1920s.

McVey’s
wife, Leza Sullivan McVey, a well-known ceramist and textile
artist, assisted him in fashioning the tiles. She carried
out three separate firings: one for the stoneware, a second
at lower temperatures for the color glazes and a third when
mosaics, imported from Florence, Italy, were used.

McVey majored
in architecture at Rice before attending the Cleveland School
of Art to study sculpture, and he later studied in Paris
under Charles Despiau, a pupil of Rodin. Until his death
in 1995, McVey was a prolific sculptor. His works reside
in numerous museums, public spaces and private collections
worldwide. Among his better-known pieces in Texas are the
Davy Crockett Monument in Austin, the James Bowie Memorial
in Texarkana, the Texas Memorial in Austin and the frieze
and three-dimensional star atop the San Jacinto Monument.
Several of his works grace the Rice campus, including the
10-foot relief, “Energy,” which McVey nicknamed
“Uncle Jupe,” on Abercrombie Laboratory and the
bas-relief portraits of early Rice faculty adorning the
Cohen House courtyard.

Some of the
tiles characterize actual people and events, such as the
one showing the freshman class president dangling by a rope
between two buildings. The figure is none other than McVey
himself, who was president of his freshman and sophomore
classes, a football player under Coach John W. Heisman and
an illustrator for the Thresher, the Rice Owl and several
volumes of the Campanile.

As president
of his freshman class, McVey and his date were to lead the
grand march of the freshman ball. But it would not be easy
— the sophomore class tradition was to capture the
freshman president and his date and humiliate them before
the march by painting them and making them wear amusing
outfits. They did capture McVey’s date, Frances Thomson
’27, and force her to wear baby clothes, but McVey
had other ideas.

For McVey to
save the honor of his class, the rules of the game stipulated
that he had to remain uncaptured and reach the floor of
Turnverein Hall, the place downtown where the dance was
to be held, between 8:55 and 9 p.m. on the night of the
dance. Two days before the event, the sophomores searched
the hall and then posted a large number of vigilant guards
to prevent McVey from sneaking in. Meanwhile, they searched
high and low for McVey, but in vain. He had disappeared.

They should
have looked closer at hand — he was on an upper floor
of the building next door. After the sophomores finished
searching Turnverein Hall and thought the building was safe,
McVey, aided by classmate Jesse Madden, swung on a rope
across the 20-foot alley and alighted on the roof of Turnverein
Hall. For the next two days, he hid in the hall’s attic,
and at the appointed hour, while the sophomores searched
frantically but futilely for him, he crawled through an
air vent, dropped the rope into the midst of the crowd and
slid to the floor in triumph. The freshmen were ecstatic,
the sophomores utterly dismayed, and the feat made all the
local newspapers.

The tiles on
the old Hanszen Commons were removed when the building was
demolished this past year, and they will be reinstalled
on the new Hanszen Commons after it is completed. The tiles
on Will Rice Commons will remain in place.

— Chris
Dow is editor of the Sallyport.