Board of Regents approves name for Kennesaw State University Art Museum

 

KENNESAW, Ga.—The University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents approved Kennesaw State University's proposal to name Phase II of its Art Museum in honor of university benefactor Bernard A. Zuckerman. The Regents approved construction of KSU’s $3 million, 9,200-square-foot facility last month. Construction could begin as early as this summer and is expected to be completed in March 2013.

 

The Bernard A. Zuckerman Art Museum will house the university's permanent art collection, provide a center for interdisciplinary research, and will serve as a cultural resource for the community. It includes three rotating exhibition galleries as well as the Ruth V. Zuckerman Pavilion, a glass atrium devoted to the sculpture work of Bernard Zuckerman's late wife, who was renowned for her work in stone and bronze.

The naming honors Mr. Zuckerman's $2 million pledge for the construction of the museum. The remaining funds have been raised from a variety of private gifts from individuals, corporations, and foundations, including the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation in Atlanta.

 

Bernard and Ruth Zuckerman moved to Atlanta from New York in the early 1970s to be closer to his work in the North Georgia carpet industry. Mrs. Zuckerman made annual trips to Italy to select her marble and carved many of her sculptures there. Following her death in 1996, Mr. Zuckerman donated 97 of her works, plus her notes, sketches and maquettes to the permanent art collection at Kennesaw State, where she had been preparing an exhibition of her work. Pieces from that body of work have been displayed in various locations on campus, including the Anna F. Henriquez Atrium of the Dr. Bobbie Bailey & Family Performance Center, where concertgoers can view 18 of the larger sculptures. The Zuckerman Art Museum will adjoin the Henriquez Atrium allowing for the exhibition space to be expanded. It will also allow campus visitors to move easily between the university's performance venues and exhibition venues.

 

“The art museum will become the hub of the Arts District on campus, providing a welcoming center that physically connects the corridor between the concert hall of the Bailey Performance Center and the two theaters,” said College of the Arts Dean Joseph Meeks. “Students and the community will be able to partake in multiple arts experiences on every visit to campus.”

 

Meeks further explained, “We are so honored by Bernard Zuckerman's generosity and his vision. The university has been working to build a truly stellar art museum for many years, but it has been possible because Mr. Zuckerman made this commitment to it. Then, he inspired others to enroll in the vision.”

 

Other artists represented in the university's expansive art collection include Marc Chagall, Rembrandt Peale, Viola Frey, Norman Rockwell, Howard Finster, Pierre-August Renoir, Lamar Dodd, Thomas Hart Benton, Frederic Remington, James Abbott McNeil Whistler, N.C. Wyeth, Athos Menaboni and many others.

 

The Bernard A. Zuckerman Art Museum is being designed by Stanley Beaman & Sears, the firm which recently completed the expansion of the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens.