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By the Boss, Sunday, May 20, 2007 11:23 am

The Portland Art Museum has grown up in the past decade to join other bigger-city museums around the country in promoting blockbuster art shows, from Impressionists to — yes — Egyptian tomb art. Its best exhibits have grown out of the work of European curator Penelope Hunter-Stiebel, who, with the help of now-former executive director John Buchanan, has managed to raid the artistic attics of Europe and Russia for a series of opulent shows.

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By the Boss,

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art, on campus at Willamette University, right next to the state Capitol in Salem, does the best job of any museum anywhere collecting and showing work by Oregon artists.

It’s a small museum but well designed and well run; it offers well curated shows of contemporary painters like Portland landscapist Michael Brophy and Oregon coast painter Rick Bartow but also looks at mid-20th century Oregon figures like Charles Heaney and Carl Hall.

The museum is at 700 State St., Salem. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Admission is $3 adults, $2 students and seniors.