Museums on The Real Oregon
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.
Sunday, May 20th, 2007
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.
Posted in Best things to do, High culture, Museums, Portland | No Comments »
Sunday, May 20th, 2007
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.
Posted in Best things to do, High culture, Museums, Willamette Valley | No Comments »
