Hallie Ford Museum of Art - Collections and Archives - Willamette University

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Establishing the museum has set the stage for developing the art collection over time. The current holdings include objects collected throughout the twentieth century (the Byrd and Polleski collections of Native American art, acquired in the 1940's, for example), works purchased with funds provided by Elmer Young, Maribeth Collins, Hallie Ford, and the major gift of the Mark and Janeth Sponenburgh Study Collection. In the past five years, Dan and Nancy Schneider have donated American paintings and sculptures and numerous European and American prints. In addition, collections of the work by a particular artist have been donated in recent years by Ruth Dennis Grover, Jack and Barbara McLarty and the families of the artists Constance Fowler, Jeanne Moment, Stella Douglas, Donald Bunse, Mark Morrison, and others.

Since the opening of the museum in October of 1998, the University's art collection has been strengthened by Frank Boyden donating 57 of his prints in honor of Maribeth Collins, the generous gift of six prints by William Hogarth and 12 prints by Auguste Rodin given by Michael Foster, the donation by Muriel Stieber of 12 ancient vases that date from the seventh to the third century B.C.E., and the purchase of 30 works by Carl Hall from the Maribeth Collins Art Acquisition Fund. Many additional donors have given or agreed to give in the future a particular individual work. A major future gift that will greatly enhance the collection is the Leo Michelson collection of contemporary art - approximately 2,000 paintings, prints and sculptures mostly by Pacific Northwest artists.

[View the Collection Online]
By Professor Roger Hull
As the twentieth century ends, the story of Pacific Northwest art has yet to be fully told. Like all emerging stories, it must be narrated in parts and from a variety of perspectives. At the Hallie Ford Museum of art, the story of Northwest art centers on key figures in Willamette University's own art history - Constance Fowler (1907-1996) and Carl Hall (1921-1996). The aforementioned artists, whose successive teaching careers at Willamette University spanned the fifty-year period from 1935 to 1985, found that the lure of the local and the locale was strong and sure. In different ways they drew their inspiration from the natural and man-made environments of Salem, the Willamette Valley, and the Oregon coast. Their art provides the nucleus of the museum's permanent northwest collection.

While in the early stages of formation, the work of more than fifty additional artists who have relied upon the Pacific Northwest as subject matter for art or as a setting to create in original and independent ways is featured at the museum. This inaugural exhibition of works from the museum's collection suggests the range and diversity of art that can be described as "Pacific Northwest"- works that describe and express feelings about the region itself, works that respond to the freedoms of "being on the edge", far from the recognized centers of art-making; or works that in different ways reflect mainstreams in American and modern art in different periods. With examples ranging from the portrait of a woman painted by Marie Craig in 1886 (the year she began teaching art at Willamette University) to D.E. May's delicate and reserved mixed media abstractions of the 1980's and 90's (made in his studio a few blocks from the museum), the Hallie Ford Museum of Art includes the range and the limits of the museum's "opening day" collection.

There are gaps to be filled in the years and decades ahead, as the collection and our collective understanding of the arts of the region grows more complete, and as new art is created and added to the mix. Named for Carl Hall, who taught at Willamette University for nearly forty years and painted a luminous record of his response to the region, this gallery is the permanent setting for seeing and re-seeing key works of art created in the Pacific Northwest. Together with the museum's archive of artists' papers and records, the Carl Hall Gallery and the Northwest collections reflect the museum's commitment to preserving, presenting, and interpreting the art of the region.

By Professor Rebecca Dobkins
We stand on ancestral Kalapuyan land. From this place and others throughout the Willamette Valley, the Kalapuyan indians lived their lives trading with neighboring peoples who in turn interacted with communities throughout the Northwest, the Plateau, and the northern Great Basin. Represented in this exhibit is a sampling of the basketweaving traditions of these regions. The design of the exhibition is meant to emphasize these baskets as works of art, but also as insights into the lifeways of the native people who made them. From a native perspective, the process of making a basket is as important as the final product. Starting with the respectful collection of plant materials, the preparation of those materials, and continuing with the weaving itself, the weaver thoughtfully attends to each stage of the process and develops a vast store of knowledge.

In the museum setting, where baskets are placed on pedestals and under plexiglas, the basketmaking process is all but invisible. Though the names of most of the basket artists in this exhibit are unknown to us, it doesn't mean that the art form itself is anonymous. The distinctive hand of the individual weaver is visible to those who carefully read the language of baskets. To give voice to Native American weavers and to highlight the fact that the traditional art of basketry thrives today, we have invited contemporary basket weavers to exhibit their work. You can find this contemporary work toward the end of the exhibit; on a rotating basis, we will feature the work of a variety of weavers from throughout the greater Northwest. From where we stand today, at the turn of the millenium, we can look across our region and see that many of the Native American communities in which the Willamette University collection of baskets were made are not just surviving, but growing. This exhibition celebrates the still unfolding legacy of Northwest Native America.

By Professor Ann Nicgorski
Much of the art displayed in this gallery was generously donated to Willamette University in 1990 by Mark and Janeth Sponenburgh. The collection is very diverse and reflects the travels and interests of the Sponenburgh's over the years, with pieces from the Swat River Valley, India, Nepal, the Middle East, China, Japan, Thailand, Korea, Egypt, Africa, Europe, and America. These pieces include traditional paintings, furniture, ceramics, prints, sculptures, textiles, architectural fragments, archaeological artifacts, and decorative arts. The Hallie Ford Museum of Art sees it primary function as educational and co-curricular, serving Willamette University students as well as the local community. The purpose of such an eclectic array of objects is clear within the context of a university museum. In presenting diverse works produced throughout history and around the world, the university museum seeks to open the viewer's perception to artworks of aesthetic quality and expressive significance that represent many different cultural traditions. The collection is also intended to provide students of the liberal arts with authentic works that will aid them in their study of the timeless questions of how and why such artworks were created, in what manner they were employed, and how they affected, or were affected by, the time in which they were created.

Another important goal of the university museum is to aid in the development of aesthetic sensibilities by providing a place where the mind and imagination can be engaged and where the spirit can soar. Indeed, university museums have long demonstrated the value of diverse collections of visual art in formal humanistic studies. For it is through such study that we can understand ourselves and our human potential, and it is through such art that we will be understood and remembered by those who come after us.

By Professor Roger Hull
The Print Study Center is a space for the display, storage, and study of the museum's permanent collection of works on paper - prints, drawings, paintings on paper, and photographs. At present, this collection is primarily one of contemporary American works, particularly by artists of the Pacific Northwest. Other highlights include etchings by the seventeenth-century Dutch artist Anthonie Waterloo and the nineteenth-century American expatriate James Abbott McNeil Whistler, as well as an early pictorial photograph by Edward Steichen. Still in the early stages of development, the Print Study Center collection is envisioned as a growing one that will eventually include a wide variety of American, European, and Asia works, both contemporary and historical.

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
A Balmy Afternoon, 1865
Oil on Canvas
Gift of Bishop and
Mrs. G. Bromley Oxnam

art work

Male Coffin Mask
Egyptian, Late Period
First Millenium BCE
Sycamore, plaster, paint
Gift of Mark and Janeth
Hogue Sponenburgh

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