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Campus gifted with Soffer sculpture

Sasson Soffer's
Sasson Soffer's "Northern Memory, Southern Memory" is on display between Palmer Auditorium and Cummings Arts Center.

No one was more grateful for alumna Jessica Soffer's Connecticut College experience than her father, renowned artist Sasson Soffer.

"My father always talks about how happy it made him to think of me at Connecticut College," Jessica Soffer '07 said.

Soffer, who works as an assistant designer for Seldom Scene Interiors and recently earned her M.F.A. from Hunter College, said that her professors, including Frank Graziano, Blanche McCrary Boyd and Robert Gay, as well as Mary Devins, the associate director of the College's Toor Cummings Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts, gave her the support and focus she needed to figure out exactly what she wanted to do.

As a way of giving back to the College, Soffer and her family recently donated one of Sasson's pieces, "Northern Memory, Southern Memory," to the College. Sasson has exhibited across the country, twice at Carnegie International, the oldest North American exhibition of contemporary art. His work can be found in permanent collections at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City and the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Soffer said that the family chose the piece, designed in 1986, in part because the dynamic sculpture provides a contrast to the very serene, rolling landscape of Tempel Green.

"In many ways, the campus is punctuated by strong art, and we wanted to contribute to that trend," she said.



August 11, 2009