Colby is given art worth $100m
A Maine couple will donate their art collection, estimated to be worth $100 million, to the Colby College Museum of Art , the museum announced yesterday. Needing more space to show the works collected by Peter H. and Paula Crane Lunder , the museum will build a wing scheduled to open in 2013.
The 500 works in the collection include paintings, sculptures, and prints by John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe, Winslow Homer, Sol LeWitt, Jenny Holzer, and Alex Katz . The collection also includes 201 etchings and lithographs by James McNeill Whistler .
"I think this is fantastic," said Michael Rush , the director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. "It's very encouraging for all of us that in this day of inflated art market prices that people like the Lunders are willing to donate a vastly valuable collection to an institution, particularly a university institution. Colby's a very, very fine museum and this just catapults them into a whole new category."
The Lunders, who have homes in Maine, Boston, and Florida, have strong ties with Colby. Peter Lunder graduated from the college in 1956 and later served as president of the Dexter Shoe Co. in Maine. Both Lunders serve on boards for the university, Peter as a life overseer, Paula Crane Lunder as a life trustee. Over the years, the Lunders have been closely involved with the university's art museum, giving money to help build a wing, opened in 1999 and named after them. They have endowed the museum's curator of American art position.
Peter Lunder is also the vice chairman of the Smithsonian Institution's National Board , where the Lunder Foundation endowed the Lunder Conservation Center and the Lunder Education Curator at the Smithsonian's Museum of American Art.
The Lunders declined a request to be interviewed yesterday. In a press release, the couple said, in part: "We believe these artworks offer both a window into the American experience and a broad perspective on the world, and we wish to share these opportunities for insight and enjoyment with others from the Colby community, to Waterville, to the state of Maine and its many visitors."
The 24,000-square-foot Colby Museum of Art opened in 1959. The new wing will add 10,000 square feet and cost roughly $6 million to $8 million. The Lunders didn't stipulate the wing be built in order for them to make the donation, but they did make it clear they wanted the work to be on display, Colby president William D. Adams said yesterday.
"We agreed," said Adams. "We want this collection to be seen and to be used by faculty and students and by the citizens of central Maine."
Sharon Corwin , the art museum's director, said the collection significantly boosts Colby's holdings in American art.
"The depth and breadth of the collection fills in many holes," she said. "We didn't have a John Singer Sargent. Now we have four, and other instances like that. We've become a real center for the study of American art."
Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers @globe.com. For more on the arts go to boston.com/ae/ theater_arts/exhibitionist. 