2014 Annual Report
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2014 ANNUAL REPORT Maryhill Museum of Art and the Mary and Bruce Stevenson Wing. Photograph by Steve Grafe, Curator of Art 1 | Page Overview of Accomplishments in 2014 In 2014 the Maryhill Museum of Art welcomed nearly 40,000 people through its doors. Visitors enjoyed brilliant exhibitions, partook of dozens of learning opportunities and enjoyed the gardens and grounds, Loïe’s: The Museum Café, the Museum Store and sites on the ranch such as Stonehenge Memorial or the historic Maryhill Loops Road. While Maryhill enjoyed its second season in the Mary Mission and Bruce Stevenson Wing, the museum continued to address plans to round out the new wing. These included From the unique Columbia River Gorge, continued improvement of the museum’s collection Maryhill Museum of Art collects, presents storage system in the Brim Family Research Center, and preserves art and historical and natural progress made on the west side landscaping plan, and resources to enrich and educate residents improvements in the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust and visitors of the Pacific Northwest. Education Center. With the support of Weinstein Vision Associates, and technology consultant, Kent Heighton, Maryhill Museum of Art is foremost an the museum was able to install museum-wide Wi-Fi. educational institution delivering quality This was immediately used by visitors, volunteers, exhibits and educational programming trustees, committee members, friends and staff. related to its collections and its history. In The museum met a water challenge in 2014 by studying doing so, it provides opportunities for the museum’s main water system to better serve the people of all ages and backgrounds to needs of the museum building and gardens. Further, the experience human creativity in its varied historic building received some attention as the stucco manifestations. The museum preserves its was carefully studied in order to determine what sort of collections in the public trust for present intervention was needed to restore it to its original and future generations, and continues to beauty. The museum is currently seeking funding to acquire new items of requisite quality repair and paint the stucco and related roofs. supporting its mission and building on its strengths. The museum safeguards Sam The Board of Trustees, volunteers and staff continue to Hill’s Ranch to protect its historical and work toward an institutional Culture of Philanthropy. natural resources, and sustainably utilizes it The concept of the Maryholder was formally integrated to meet the museum’s mission. in museum management. Trustees reached out to members and supporters. All of these efforts are Values predicated on the idea that all of us are responsible for Quality | Integrity the health of Maryhill and that all of us must do our part Welcoming | Diversity to create a sustainable museum. Enjoyment | Innovation The museum ended the operating year in the black Sustainability | Stewardship because of the generous support of its members and Accountability friends—its Maryholders—whose support was instrumental in the museum meeting its mission. The museum’s total liabilities and equity for 2014 was Pictured Above—On the Cannon Power $13,565,677.79. Of that $11,787,540.15 is in fixed assets Plaza: Alisa Looney (Portland, OR), Roll & (property) and $939,772.76 is permanently restricted in Play, 2007, powder-coated and flame cut the endowment. For more information on the museum’s mild steel, 36" x 75" x 48"; Gift of the North Star Foundation, Collection of Maryhill financial position, please see the museum’s audited Museum of Art. financial report for 2014. 2 | Page Highlights of the 2014 Season THE MUSEUM’S EXHIBITIONS When the museum opened on March 15, 2014, it presented four special exhibitions. James Lee Hansen: Sculpture, March 15 – July 27, featured more than thirty bronze and fabricated metal works by the well- known Modernist sculptor from Battle Ground, Washington. Three other exhibitions ran from March 15 to November 15. Maryhill Favorites: The Female Form, included about a dozen paintings from the museum’s permanent collection. Angela Swedberg: Historicity featured fifteen glass and mixed media works. The Flip Side: Comic Art by New Yorker Cartoonists , guest curated by Portland- based comic artist Shannon Wheeler, contained work by a half-dozen artists whose cartoons regularly appear in The New Yorker magazine. The season concluded with African Art from the Mary Johnston Collection, August James Lee Hansen (American, b. Bobo (Burkina Faso/Mali), 9–November 15. Drawn from the collection 1925), Vigil Study, 2000, bronze, Antelope Mask, 20th century, of Mary L. Johnston of Florence, Oregon, 28¼” x 10 x 5¾”; Photo courtesy of carved and painted wood and the exhibition’s interpretive information the artist. raffia, 48” tall; Photo courtesy of (labels and text panels) was provided by Hallie Ford Museum of Art John Olbrantz, the Maribeth Collins Director of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. The exhibit was Maryhill’s first-ever presentation of African art. Through the year, Portland artist Mike Suri had three metal sculptures on view in the William and Catherine Dickson Sculpture Park: Clackamas (2013), Peer (2011) and Brushing (2009). Brushing was first exhibited at the museum in 2009. It was purchased for the museum at the end of 2014 by Stephen and Laura Muehleck. The work was originally created with a Maryhill placement in mind and the Muehleck’s generosity allows it to Mike Suri (Portland, Oregon), Brushing, 2009, steel with remain permanently at the museum—and in a weathering patina, 192” x 60” x 36”; Gift of Laura and location that shows it off to full advantage. Stephen Muehleck, Collection of Maryhill Museum of Art 3 | Page COLLECTIONS requests were approved, with 54 images from In 2014, the Board of Trustees approved 26 new Maryhill’s collection being used for various accessions totaling over 65 objects. Nineteen external publications. were acquired through donations and seven We also welcomed through purchase. New representatives from Warm items to the collection Springs for a NAGPRA (Native range from works of art on American Graves Protection paper, to Romanian folk and Repatriation Act) visit, as clothing, to contemporary well as the entire Columbia Native American art. All of Plateau Intertribal Repatriation the objects acquired Council for a meeting and enhance the breadth of our viewing of collections. The collections and will be used Théâtre de la Mode collection as appropriate for exhibits. also saw use, with mannequins The museum borrowed traveling to Portland on two dozens of objects for separate occasions for exhibition in 2015 in twelve presentations. These were also object loans; ten related to shared with the museum’s temporary exhibits and two Corps of Volunteers in 2014. ongoing loans enhancing A highlight of the year was the permanent exhibitions. having a production team Maryhill also loaned a working on a film about the number of objects this past Columbia Gorge Highway year. Perhaps the most featuring an actor playing Sam significant was the loan of Hill. “Sam” even took time to 31 objects related to Loïe visit with a local school group Fuller materials to La Casa while he was here. We Encendida in Madrid for conducted 18 behind-the- the exhibition Las scenes tours in collection Metamorfosis de Loie storage, giving 118 visitors a Fuller, February 6 – May 4, unique view of the museum. 2014. These include 19 photographs, 1 bronze relief A great deal of progress was plaque, 1 plaster relief made with collections this year plaque, 2 figural sculptures, with completion of another 1 plaster figurine, 1 poster, 3 phase of the collections documents, and 3 letters. storage project. Preparation for Maryhill also loaned a this final phase included Columbia Plateau carved packing up the library books to stone effigy to the Yakima make room for the archives, Valley Museum for a and then moving the archives Sasquatch exhibit. back into the collections vault. We also began an inventory of The collections were our Native American accessed by others Above: A postcard lent to the La Casa collections to prepare for their regularly in the past year, Encendida for Las Metamorfosis de Loie move to the new storage in primarily through image Fuller. Reutlinger (French), Loie Fuller, 1983, 2015. use requests. Eleven postcard; Collection of Maryhill Museum of Art. Below: Maryhill’s Collections Storage, Brim Family Research Center. 4 | Page PROGRAM OFFERINGS engage directly in the arts. Among the workshops Last year, Maryhill presented an array of offered were bookmaking, image transfer, programs for people of all painting and ages and backgrounds. storytelling. During the exhibition of Maryhill had continuing James Lee Hansen: success with its annual Sculpture, the museum programs. Poem in Your hosted a gallery walk, a Pocket Day dedicated to First Thursday event in the memory of William Portland, a panel discussion Stafford, was led by poet on Hansen’s art, and a visit Tim Barnes. In July, the to the artist’s studio. In A Midsummer Night’s April, Maryhill presented Dream was performed by Artist Talk: A Conversation the Portland Actors with Angela Swedberg and Ensemble in the Duane Pasco. Then in May gardens. The Summer and June, programs were Art Institute, Art in 3-D, held in conjunction with the was a week-long course museum’s student on teaching sculpture in exhibition, Cardboard, Clay the classroom. Teachers and Crayons: Chess Sets by worked with poet Tim Young Northwest Artists; Barnes and sculptors one of which featured chess M.J. Anderson, Alyssa master Jeremy Silman. In Looney and Julian Voss- July, Penny Phillips Andreae. premiered her film Spirit in Glass: Plateau Native Hundreds of students Beadwork at Maryhill. A visited Maryhill in 2014. short time later, the Many came during the museum celebrated the spring and fall Museum Weeks for third and exhibit African Art from the Above: Treasure Wars: Silver vs.