The work of art commissioned to commemorate KU’s sesquicentennial features quotes from a student reflecting on the morning she enrolled at the university, in 1866. The artwork is a combination of illustration and text called a broadside, commonly created to mark important events. The ink illustration is by Barry Moser.

“I was reminded of that first day of the University … when I enrolled as a student at North College. On that morning I went out early into the dewy pasture to catch my pony for the 3-mile ride into town.

“It was a bright and beautiful morning with a hint of autumn coolness in the air. … No one, I am sure, ever climbed Mt. Oread with higher hopes than were mine on that September morning.”

A work of art commissioned to commemorate Kansas University’s sesquicentennial features not an announcement by a chancellor or proclamation from a government official.

Instead designers chose this, a personal reflection from a single starry-eyed student ascending the hill in 1866, to signify something much bigger — the very beginnings of KU.

KU Sesquicentennial Committee members who designed the artwork said the passage, to them, represented the university’s raison d’être: providing opportunity to students.

“It was talking about one person’s experience rather than talking about a grand plan, or a political event, or something so public,” said KU design lecturer Linda Talleur, a letterpress expert, who designed the artwork along with KU design professor Patrick Dooley, who specializes in typography. “This is a very private reaction to this opportunity.”

The passage comes from a 1926 issue of The Graduate Magazine in which Savage (Susan Savage Alford, by then) recalls the morning for an article entitled “K. U. Days — In the Beginning: A Story of the Foundation Days 60 Years Ago Told by One of First Students.”

The sesquicentennial artwork her words appear in is not a painting or a sculpture. It’s a combination of illustration and written notice called a broadside.

Historically, broadsides were posted publicly to communicate messages, and probably the most famous broadside Americans would recognize is the Declaration of Independence, said Liz Kowalchuk, associate professor in KU’s visual art department and chairwoman of the Sesquicentennial Committee.

In the art world, creating letterpress-printed broadsides has become a tradition to mark important events, Kowalchuk said.

“The work is considered to be a work of art, but it is to commemorate a special occasion,” she said. When Kowalchuk became chairwoman of the KU 150 committee, she said, “I immediately thought that an occasion like this should be commemorated with a broadside.”

The KU sesquicentennial broadside features a black ink illustration by artist Barry Moser, lauded Massachusetts illustrator and printmaker.

Talleur said while KU has many skilled artists, the committee was concerned partiality would be a problem in choosing one from a talented group of people. Also, she said, Moser is “the master” of the type of illustration they sought.

“He has kind of a way of making something historical come alive and not look like a dusty history book,” Dooley said. “It seemed up his alley.”

At the top of the broadside perches Old North College, KU’s first and only building at the time, located near 11th and Louisiana streets where Corbin and GSP residence halls are now. A young woman on a pony with a windblown tail trots up toward the building over a grassy expanse.

In the center, Savage’s quotes are printed along with an illustration of her face, replicated from an old photograph. On either side of the text are symbols of Kansas, a meadowlark and a sunflower.

At the bottom, this inscription along with the KU 150 logo: “The founders of the University of Kansas recognized the importance of educational opportunities for both men and women. KU has been open to all genders and races since the beginning.”

Prints will be distributed by the university but won’t be for sale.

There will be 500 limited-edition letterpress prints of the broadside created, to be distributed at the chancellor’s discretion. For the offset edition, more than 2,000 prints will be made and distributed at various university events celebrating the sesquicentennial.