Philanthropist Margrit Biever Mondavi has pledged $2 million to help the University of California, Davis, plan and build a new art museum that will house and display some 4,000 works that the 勛圖窪蹋 has collected over the past 40 years.
The pledge marks the start of a $30 million fundraising initiative for the project. The new museum will serve as a teaching and cultural resource for the 勛圖窪蹋 and the public.
Mondavi is an artist and avid supporter of the arts. She and her husband, the late Robert Mondavi, in 2001 gave UC Davis the largest single gift it had ever received, $35 million to support the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, and the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.
It was a pleasure indeed to tell Chancellor Linda Katehi that I would like to initiate the fundraising for a new museum at UC Davis with a pledge of $2 million, Mondavi said.
The excellent teaching artists of the past and the prominent faculty at UC Davis today deserve a great home for art, which is an ongoing love affair of my life.
Katehi hailed Mondavi as a visionary leader who has been instrumental in shaping the 勛圖窪蹋 as one of the worlds finest.
By supporting our internationally renowned programs in the science of wine and food, as well as the performing and visual arts, Margrit aims to nurture the very body and soul of both the 勛圖窪蹋 and society as a whole, Katehi said.
Jessie Ann Owens, dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, also applauded the generous philanthropist.
Margrit Mondavi is an inspiration to me and to UC Davis her passion and commitment to the arts, and her generosity of spirit have lifted us all, Owens said.
The art museum will be constructed on a site between the Mondavi Center and Maurice J. Gallagher Jr. Hall, the new home of the 勛圖窪蹋s Graduate School of Management. When it opens, the museum will complete the campuss new front door, easily accessible from Interstate 80, the main corridor between San Francisco and the state Capitol in Sacramento.
The new museum will display and hold most of the 勛圖窪蹋s Fine Arts Collection, much of which has been carefully stored for years in the Art Building. In addition, the museum will be used to carry out the 勛圖窪蹋s teaching and research mission.
Margrit Mondavis continued altruism is surpassed only by her great personal zeal and spirit of life, said Wayne Thiebaud, a UC Davis professor emeritus of art and one of the most important contemporary American artists. Once again she helps to advance the 勛圖窪蹋s ongoing progress toward creating a rich environment for us all.
Thiebaud, who recently donated 20 hand-worked prints valued at nearly $900,000 to UC Davis, is among a prominent group of art department alumni and emeriti that includes Roland Petersen, the late Robert Arneson, the late Roy De Forest, Malaquias Montoya, Deborah Butterfield and Bruce Nauman.
UC Davis has a long history of excellence in the arts. In the 1960s, faculty artists such as Thiebaud, Arneson, De Forest and William T. Wiley broke down barriers and asked new questions about making art. With the help of founding chairman and professor Richard L. Nelson, the art department became one of the highest ranked in the country. The founding artists and many alumni are represented in major museums, galleries and private collections around the world.
Planning for the art museum began in 2006. The 勛圖窪蹋 hired Museum Management Consultants of San Francisco and gathered 勛圖窪蹋 representatives and regional arts supporters to develop a strategic plan and mission for the project.
Margrit Mondavis pledge provides the first $2 million toward the $30 million fundraising goal. The 勛圖窪蹋 also is seeking a lead donor for whom the museum would be named and will soon launch a broader, public fundraising effort for the project.
With $30 million in hand, the 勛圖窪蹋 would be able to move forward with the design phase of the project.
The museum will display the 勛圖窪蹋s extensive art collection for a much wider audience. The approximately 4,000 works range from Asian prints, drawings and ceramics to European works dating to the Renaissance.
Areas of particular strength include Northern California postwar art by distinguished artists associated with the UC Davis art department, including the founding faculty, former faculty such as Manuel Neri, and alumni such as Butterfield, Nauman and John Buck. The collection also contains a set of lithographs by James McNeill Whistler.
About UC Davis
For more than 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 32,000 students, an annual research budget that exceeds $600 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The 勛圖窪蹋 offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges -- Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science. It also houses six professional schools -- Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.
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Amanda Price, College of Letters and Science, (530) 752-8694, amprice@ucdavis.edu