$1 million gift brings major art exhibitions to UO museum

Oregon's arts and cultural scene will be enriched by a $1 million gift from the Coeta and Donald Barker Foundation to the University of Oregon's Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.

The gift enables the museum to bring in major traveling exhibitions, beginning with the West coast premiere of "Cuba Avant-Garde," Oct. 4 through Jan. 4, 2009, in the Coeta and Donald Barker Gallery. The diverse exhibit, on loan from the Farber Collection, showcases contemporary works by 42 artists.

UO President Dave Frohnmayer said the university has named the museum's 4,000 square-foot changing exhibition gallery in honor of the Barkers, who supported many UO academic and athletic programs during their lives.

The gallery was dedicated May 2 in anticipation of the museum's yearlong 75th anniversary celebration, which begins in June.

"Coeta and Don have been among the University of Oregon's best friends," Frohnmayer said. "Their foundation's gift means our museum now has the financial ability to bring wonderful traveling art exhibits to the people of Oregon."

Nancy Harris, chair of the Barker Foundation, said the gift is in keeping with wishes expressed by Coeta Barker shortly before her death in 2005.

"What a wonderful tribute," Harris said. " Eugene is where the foundation began, and the University of Oregon has been a major recipient of the foundation's grants from the start. This endowment gift will carry on the name and spirit of Coeta and Don and honor them into perpetuity."

Donald Barker '42 owned several Eugene-based companies. He grew up in Portland, Ore., and studied law at the UO. He and Coeta lived in Eugene, where they established the Donald R. Barker Foundation in 1977. After he died in 1980, the trustees renamed the foundation and Coeta moved to California where she had homes in Rancho Mirage and Santa Barbara.

The Barker endowment will generate about $40,000 per year toward the costs of mounting major traveling exhibitions and curating in-house changing exhibits, said Robert C. Melnick, interim executive director of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.