School of Art and Art History

Chunghi Choo

Professor, Jewelry and Metal Arts
F. Wendell Miller Distinguished Professor

Contact

Office: 1435A SA
Campus phone: (319) 319 335-1793
Email: chunghi-choo@uiowa.edu
Gallery

Biography

Chunghi Choo is F. Wendell Miller Distinguished Professor of Art and an Elected Fellow of the American Craft Council. She teaches courses in Jewelry and Metal Art's Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced, Graduate Workshops and Summer session. She taught Interdisciplinary Design/Metals and Technologies, and has been giving Special Workshops in Electroforming for artists and students from the US and abroad.

Professor Choo and her students have been pioneering the use of non-conventional materials and improving on and developing techniques that continue to lead in the creation of diverse and innovative artworks in metals and in other mediums. They have been creating work without boundaries of media, producing objects in Mixed Media, far ahead of its time. She helps students to develop and refine conceptual and technical skills, and in their personal creative expressions for them to succeed in the field of education, entrepreneurial business practice, and in industry for multi production of Art objects.  Her current and former students are frequent winners of major national and international competitions, publications, and museum acquisitions.

Chunghi Choo received her BFA degree from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea, (1961) and her MFA degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI (1965), majoring in Metalsmithing with minors in Ceramics and Weaving. She has received many Honors that include an invitation by the Smithsonian Institution to leave her professional and personal papers to their Archives of the American Art. Oral history transcript of digitally-recorded interviews on her work, teaching, and life is in the Smithsonian's website: http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-chunghi-choo-13621. She is a recipient of National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Metalwork. Honors she received from the University of Iowa include: the AMOCO Excellence in Teaching Award; the Regent's Award for Faculty Excellence; titled professorship; and the Helen Kechriotis Nelson Teaching Award. She is presented on the University of Iowa website as one of the "Remarkable People" http://www.uiowa.edu/be-remarkable/portfolio/people/choo-c.html).

Public Collections of her artworks at museums and public institutions include: Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; in New York City: Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Arts and Design, Cooper Hewitt-National Design Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, and Jewish Museum; Museum für Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt; Det Danske Kunstindustrimuseets, Copenhagen; Art Institute of Chicago; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Detroit Institute of Art; Racine Art Museum, WI; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Toledo Museum of Art, OH; Cranbrook Museum of Art, MI; Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; in Iowa: Figge Art Museum, Strayer Wood Theater of University of Northern Iowa, John Deere Works, University of Iowa Museum, Hospital and Clinics; General Foods Corporation Headquarters, White Plains, NY; LongHouse Reserve, East Hampton, NY; Temple B'Nai Jehudah, Kansas City; Dae Woo Headquarters, Seoul, Korea, and other public institutions. One of her metal pieces was chosen as one of about 125 master design works collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, during the last 100 years and exhibited in "Modern Design 1890-1990" accompanied by a book by Craig Miller, Harry N. Abrams publishers.

Exhibitions of her Hollowware, Jewelry, Flatware, Sculptures, Mixed Media objects, Light Fixtures, and Textile artwork have been exhibited in national and international invitational solo, group, and traveling exhibitions in major museums and art centers in numerous countries in five of the world's continents, and virtually throughout the US.  The exhibitions include solo exhibitions (Jack Lenor Larsen's Showroom, NYC, and Hachmeister and Schnake Galerie, Münster, Germany); "Craft Today USA" (American Craft Museum, NYC, and toured to 15 major cities in European countries); "American Masters of Hollowware of the Late 20th Century" (University of Georgia Museum); "Craft Today: Poetry of the Physical" (American Craft Museum, NYC, and toured US); "Benchmarkers: Women in Metal" (toured US); "Innovations/Applications: Technical pioneers in Metalsmithing" (Tyler School of Art); "Fiberworks" international, (Cleveland Museum of Art); "Forms in Metal: 275 Years of Metalsmithing in America" (Museum of Contemporary Crafts, NYC, and toured US); "North American Goldsmith" (Renwick Gallery, and toured US); "Fabric Vibrations" (Museum of Contemporary Crafts, NYC, and SITES International traveling exhibition to 15 major cities in Eastern and Western Europe, Near and Far Eastern Countries and Pacific Islands); "British and American Contemporary Server" (Goldsmiths Hall, London, and National Ornamental Metal Museum, US); "Guest of USA" (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg); and in more than 300 other exhibitions.

Publications of Chunghi Choo's work, reviews, feature articles, and articles by her appeared in numerous professional journals, books, and textbooks including: Craft in America Celebrating Two Centuries of Artists and Objects, (Clarkson Patter publishers, www.craftinamerica.org,  "Artists" link); Jack Lenor Larsen: Creator and Collector (Merrell publishers); Objects for use: Handmade by Design (Harry N. Abrams publishers); Women Designers in the USA 1900-2000, Diversity and Difference (Yale University Press); Cranbrook Art Museum 100 Treasures (Cranbrook Centennial publication); Dreams and Reality, Korean-American Contemporary Art (Smithsonian International Gallery and Gimga Group publishers); Contemporary Silver (Merrel publishers); International Crafts (Thames and Hudson publishers); American Crafts (Stewart Tabori and Chang publishers); The Dyers Art: Ikat, Batik, Plangi (Van Nostrand, Reinhold publishers); Electroforming for Metalsmithing and Jewelry (Art and Madang publisher, Korea); Metalsmith (Vol. 21, 2001; Summer, 1997; Winter, 1991; Spring, 1990; Spring, 1982); American Craft (Aug/Sept, 2005; Oct/Nov, 1997; Oct/Nov, 1994); Orientations (Oct, 1982); Craft Horizons (April, 1976); Notable Acquisitions 1965-1975 (Metropolitan Museum of Art Publication). Textbooks include: The Visual Experience (third edition); Art in Context (fourth edition); Art in the World (third edition), and in more than 120 other publications.

Professor Choo strives to develop metalworking and other media techniques faster, easier, and to reduce noise and toxicity for artists and students. Since her arrival in 1968, the University of Iowa Metals program has grown to prominence as one of the nation's outstanding programs in Jewelry and Metal Arts. Professor Choo's passion and tireless pursuit for learning, teaching, producing, fundraising for scholarships, and promoting her students' work to the Art and business world, and to the general public, continues. She served as the Head of the Metalsmithing and Jewelry program at the University of Iowa from 1968 to 2001.