For Immediate Release
(January 15, 2014)
Contact:
Carrie Cottriall
ccottriall@timkenmuseum.org
(619) 962-7997
Rebecca Heyl
(619) 606-4395
rebeccaheyl@gmail.com
Timken Museum of Art and the UCLA David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design
Host Art of Fashion 2014: A Design Competition
The Timken Museum of Art and the David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design at the UCLA
School of Theater, Film and Television (TFT) will join together to host Art of Fashion 2014: A Design
Competition. Eight TFT graduate student costume designers have created half-scale costumes inspired
by Thomas Gainsborough’s 1788 painting, “A Peasant Smoking at a Cottage Door,” which is on extended
loan to the Timken from UCLA’s Hammer Museum.
International fashion icon and designer Zandra Rhodes and an honorary “Pink List” committee of
fashion-forward and civic-minded ladies will judge the designs at a private dinner in late January. The
name of the winning graduate designer will then be announced and presented with a $5,000 scholarship
at the Award Celebration held on Saturday, February 8. Timken board member and UCLA alumna Lori
Walton and her husband, Basketball Hall of Famer and UCLA All-American Bill Walton are co-chairs.
The student creations range from historically accurate 18th century fashion to theatrical fantasy, to the
contemporary catwalk. The unique perspectives of the students, who come from as far away as central
China to those from New York, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oregon and California, are reflected in their
creations.
During the Award Celebration dinner reception, Oscar-nominated costume designer Deborah
Nadoolman Landis, founding director of the Copley Center, will reveal the competition criteria and share
the judges’ impressions. Guests will have the opportunity to examine the remarkable costumes up close
and to talk with the designers about their creations. All but the winning costume will be auctioned
during the event for the benefit of the Timken and the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television
Design Fund.
“Our partnership with the Timken Museum on The Art of Fashion is a brilliant way to construct a
creative, unique and truly interdisciplinary educational opportunity for our UCLA students,” Landis said.
“This is going to be such a wonderful event,” said Lori Walton. “Some of the most talented designers in
the world are going to be making beautiful one-of-a-kind creations. This event is a perfect tribute to our
dear friend David Copley who founded the design department at UCLA.”
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block; School of Theater, Film and Television Dean Teri Schwartz; Theater
Department Chair Michael Hackett; and Academic Coordinator Paul Girard are scheduled to attend.
“A Peasant Smoking at a Cottage Door” is featured in "Object Lessons: Gainsborough, Corot, and the
Landscape of Nostalgia," which runs through April 6. It is one of the artist’s most famous examples of
the idealized rustic genre featuring a scene of happy peasants resting after a hard day of labor. It is
shown alongside the “View of Volterra” by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot from the Timken’s permanent
collection. The masterpieces which are 50 years apart demonstrate how landscape painting changed at
the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries.
About the Timken
The Timken Museum of Art, located in San Diego’s historic Balboa Park, is the permanent home of the
Putnam Foundation’s world-class collection of European and American art and Russian icons.
Masterworks in the collection span 700 years of history and range from 14th century altarpieces
through 18th century portraits and landscapes to 19th century still lifes. The works of Italian, Dutch,
Flemish, French and American painters are represented, including those of Veronese, Guercino, Petrus
Christus, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Jacques-Louis David and John Singleton Copley. The collection also
includes the only Rembrandt painting on public display in the area.
Known as one of the finest small museums in the world, the Timken Museum of Art is open from 10 a.m.
to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and Sundays, noon to 4:30 p.m. It is closed on Mondays and
major holidays. For more information visit timkenmuseum.org; Facebook at Timken Museum of Art or
Twitter at @TimkenArtMuseum or call (619) 239-5548.
About The UCLA David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design
Founded in 2009, The David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design serves TFT students, the
UCLA community, international film and fashion historians and professional costume designers through
groundbreaking research, exhibitions and publications.
About the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television
The vision of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television is to serve as a premier global
interdisciplinary professional school that develops outstanding humanistic storytellers, industry leaders
and scholars whose diverse, innovative voices enlighten, engage and inspire change for a better world.
Consistently ranked as one of the top elite entertainment and performing arts institutions in the world,
TFT offers an innovative curriculum that integrates the study and creation of live performance, film,
television and the digital arts. Our distinguished graduate and undergraduate programs include acting,
directing, writing, producing, animation, cinematography, and lighting design, set design, costume
design, sound design, Moving Image Archive Studies, and offers PhDs in Theater and Performance
Studies and Cinema & Media Studies. For more information, visit www.tft.ucla.edu.
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