Engines of Education: Essays on the George Mason University Plaster Cast Collection

Under the direction of Carol Mattusch (Department of History and Art history, emerita), seventy plaster casts which had been loaned, donated, or -- in a few cases –- purchased for George Mason University from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York were restored and placed on display across the Fairfax Campus in the years between 2005 and 2010. More than 30 of these casts were on view in Robinson Hall B. With the announcement that both Robinson Hall A and B were to be replaces by the recently inaugurated Horizon Hall, it was clear that the Robinson Hall Collection of architectural and sculptural casts needed to be re-evaluated.

A Curatorial Seminar directed by Christopher Gregg, in the Art History Program of the Department of History and Art History, spent the Spring semester of 2021 researching the casts, writing new labels, creating an updated digital catalogue and designing an exhibition program for the Robinson Collection's display in Horizon Hall. The essays in this volume are the result of the scholarly work undertaken by the undergraduate and graduate students in the seminar.

The essays deal with a variety of topics related to plaster casts and demonstrate the many reasons why it is still worthwhile to engage with these sculptural and architectural casts. They offer avenues of investigation and insights into a number of subjects both past and present. The authors examine the changing perception of plaster casts, from works of art in their own right to mechanical reproductions that were characterized as 'specimens' in a more scientific view of the world.