Providence, R.I.--The Phillips Memorial Library at Providence College is displaying three varied exhibits throughout the Spring 2010 semester.

The exhibits--"PC Sports Goes to the Funny Page," "Birds of 19th Century America," and "The Sketch Books of Jackson Pollock in the Metropolitan Museum of Art"--will be on display through May 31. They are open to the College community and the general public.

PC Sports Goes to the Funny Page profiles the work of the late Frank B. Lanning Jr., who is best known for his long career (1937-1982) as a sports cartoonist for the Providence Journal. The primary focus of his thousands of newspaper drawings and freelance illustrations was Rhode Island athletic teams and personalities.

Lanning designed mascots and logos for sports teams as well as covers for sports publications. He is credited with creating the logo--the Raging Rooster--in 1948 for what was then Bryant College. He also created the Ram cartoon of the University of Rhode Island's mascot.

With his illustrations, he also honored many individuals connected with athletics at many of Rhode Island's colleges.

The drawings exhibited at PC are a sample of the more than 80 prints that Lanning presented to members of the PC community over the years. The complete collection is now preserved in the College's archives at Phillips Memorial Library.

Birds of 19th Century America highlights Roger Tory Peterson's reproduction of the Audubon Society's book, Baby Elephant Folio. The massive, 17-pound work was completely reorganized and annotated by Peterson, who was considered America's best-known 20th century ornithologist.

Peterson's introduction places John James Audubon in the context of the history of American ornithological art. It also reproduces a wide sampling of the work of Audubon's notable predecessors and disciples, including Peterson's own famous paintings.

Accompanying Peterson's reproduction of Audubon's work is Jacob Henry Studer's Popular Ornithology. Studer (1840-1904), a printer and publisher, utilized Chromolithography, (the color printed lithograph), opposed to the hand-colored print, as an affordable means of capturing both the brilliant plumage and delicate shading of birds drawn in their natural surroundings.

Each week during the exhibit a new page will be turned from each volume to allow viewers the opportunity to see as many illustrations as possible from each book.

The Sketch Books of Jackson Pollock in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the originals of which are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, date from the late 1930s to 1941. They represent the influence that Renaissance and Baroque masters had on artist Jackson Pollock.

By the 1960s, Pollock was generally recognized as the most important figure of this century in American painting in the movement known as Abstract Expressionism.

During the exhibit, a new sketch from each notebook will be presented periodically to allow viewers the opportunity to see as many of Pollock's sketches as possible.

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