The Peter Wexler Digital Museum Gallery opening, an invitation-only event held on Sept. 10 in the Thomas Roe Art Building, was nothing if not a gala.

The event was held in honor of Peter Wexler, a set designer and conceptual artist who has worked on numerous Broadway musicals and operas.

Former president Rod Smolla started the initiative to preserve Wexler’s art by digitizing it, which no university Furman’s size had done as extensively before.

The university presented Wexler with an honorary doctorate at fall convocation ceremonies last Tuesday, and Wexler gave the convocation address.

Ross McClain, an art professor at Furman who worked closely with Wexler to put the gallery together, spoke highly of the man and his art.

“He is the whole package.” McClain said at the gallery opening. “He is intense, intellectual, talented, and he has that enviable New Yorker grit.”

McClain went on to say that the gallery was an attempt not just to showcase an artist’s creation but to use that art to integrate the Greenville community and prompt intellectual discussions. The gallery was attended by notable dignitaries from the city, as well as professors and a few students.

“The gallery was an attempt to celebrate art in the Furman community and beyond,” said art history professor Marie Watkins. “What I especially liked about the exhibition was seeing this nationally-known artist’s creative process in his extraordinarily complex undertaking of the production of Metropolitan Opera’s ‘Les Troyens.’ His is truly a collaborative art.”

Professors said the exhibition’s opening was an attempt to stimulate interdisciplinary discussions. Numerous people were involved in the collaborative effort, including the library, the art department, the studio lab, carpenters, and students.

The “Les Troyens” exhibition opening was made possible through about two years of hard work and diligence, professors said, and was put together by Furman’s deeply passionate and motivated art-loving community. The gallery is open to the public until Oct. 5.

So, go on, art-lovers, and lose yourselves in the magnificence of “Les Troyens.”