WSU art museum awarded largest grant yet

WSU's Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art last week received $270,000 in grant funding from the Henry Luce Foundation.

The grant, which marks the largest sum donated to WSU's new museum, will be used to construct the Collections and Learning Gallery. The planned gallery would allow WSU to present artwork from the permanent collection in open storage, giving greater access to students and other visitors.

“The Collections and Learning Gallery will fulfill our essential goal of bringing rare and important cultural materials to a greater degree of public access,” Curator of Art and Exhibitions Ryan Hardesty said.

In a press release, Debby Stinson from the Schnitzer Museum dubbed the forthcoming gallery “the museum's nexus for academic research, scholarly exchange, interdisciplinary collaborations, academic courses and professional training.”

WSU's Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art opened last April at the site of the original WSU art museum. Renovations to the new museum's gallery, estimated to cost $1 million, are ongoing with phase 1 of the project set to begin this fall.