Donor Asks Iowa State Faculty to Consider Facing History

Elizabeth Brookhart Anderson called it a patchwork — a series of events and life choices that wove a pattern.

That patchwork began in Washington, D.C., moved on as a student at Iowa State University, and continued throughout her life and eventually led to the new Elizabeth and Byron Anderson Sculpture Garden near Morrill Hall on campus.

“I loved the arts while I was growing up,” said Elizabeth, a 1952 dietetics graduate. “We would often go on an outing to the National Gallery and to various other art exhibits around town. It was an immersion — one I didn’t realize at the time.”

The immersion into the arts continued at Iowa State through an art appreciation class and eventually to her final quarter on campus. Elizabeth was Christian Petersen’s only student in his sculpture course during that session.

“I was finishing up with my electives that summer and I chose that class,” Elizabeth recalled. “It was a hot August in Iowa but cool in the Vet Med Quad where the class was held.”

While Elizabeth was working on her own sculpture, Petersen, Iowa State’s artist-in-residence, was working on “Conversations,” a heroic scaled sculpture that is now located in front of the Oak-Elm residence halls.

“He was working on his side of the studio. I was on the other,” Elizabeth said. “He would occasionally stop working, come over to where I was working and offer advice, but never criticism. Then we would go about our work.

“He made a complete and total impression on me that summer.”

Elizabeth never saw the sculptor again, but that impression has stayed with her the rest of her life. It stayed with her as she and her husband and fellow Iowa State graduate Byron Anderson began their lives together. Byron was an exploration manager and petroleum geophysicist for Mobil Oil, and the couple and their children moved 27 times, living in eight states and Great Britain. Wherever the family lived, Byron, who died in 2004, was an avid gardener, nurturing trees, vegetables and flowers.

Along the way Elizabeth’s appreciation of art continued.

“No matter where we lived or where we traveled, we would make a special trip to an art gallery,” she remembered. “My view of the world is shaped, in part, by art.”

Now Elizabeth is helping others appreciate not only art in general, but Christian Petersen’s art as well. In 2005, she funded in-depth research in Petersen’s early, and nearly forgotten, artistic career. The result was the inaugural exhibition, Christian Petersen: Urban Artist, 19001934, at the new Christian Petersen Art Museum in renovated Morrill Hall.

But she wasn’t done yet. The new Elizabeth and Byron Anderson Sculpture Garden adjacent to Morrill Hall celebrates the sculptural and teaching legacy of Christian Petersen by presenting his art, as well as pieces by contemporary sculptors.

“Byron and I always had a garden, and this was a great way that I could combine our two interests — mine in sculpture and his in gardening,” Elizabeth said.

And the location of the sculpture garden couldn’t be better for the couple.

“I was enchanted when I saw the garden,” Elizabeth said. “It’s at the corner of Beardshear Hall and Morrill Hall, right where my husband and I would meet in between classes while we were students.”

As Elizabeth likes to say, the patchwork of her life continues with the sculpture garden. She recently established the Byron R. Anderson Fund in support of the maintenance of the new sculpture garden.