The best museums in Oregon are an odd lot. Our hands-down favorite is the Benson Museum at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County: small, simple and magical.
Other favorites include the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem. A small art museum at a small private school, the Hallie Ford (named after the first wife of a Roseburg timber baron, Kenneth W. Ford) is a leader in collecting and showing Northwest painting of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The Portland Art Museum did a good job of mounting popular blockbuster shows under its now-former director, John Buchanan. It remains to be seen what the future holds there.
The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon has an extensive collection of Asian art and a large collection of work, though only a few top rate pieces, by Northwest mystic painter Morris Graves.
OMSI — the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland — is fun for children.
Read on for details on these and other museums in Oregon.
“Over the course of Amanda Snyder’s long career during the early- and mid-20th century, the noted Oregon painter channeled a variety of stylistic currents. For example, colorful, impressionistic scenes imbued with darker, more abstract qualities can be found in her work….”
The art museum on campus at the University of Oregon re-opened in 2005 after a four-year, $14 million facelift that expanded its gallery space and brought the building up to snuff in terms of security and climate control — allowing it to borrow heavy-hitting art works from heavy-hitting collectors.
The museum has a strong collection of Asian art, which formed was the core of its collection when it first opened in the 1930s as a private study center on campus. Along the way it’s acquired some interesting 20th century Northwest art, particularly a large collection of more than 400 works by the late Morris Graves, who sold the box of his paintings and sketches quite cheaply to a collector when he was broke. The museum also has work by Guy Anderson, Kenneth Callahan and Mark Tobey, though much of it isn’t generally exhibited.
