Post War
In 1942, the Portland Art Museum celebrated a subdued 50th Anniversary thanks to World War II. But the following year in 1943, staff completed the museum's first full inventory, which counted a permanent collection of 3,300 objects and 750 works on long-term loan.
The next decade was distinguished by a series of record-setting exhibitions. In 1956, nearly 55,000 visitors came to the museum during the six-week run of an exhibition featuring paintings from the collection of Walter Chrysler. The exhibition was organized by the Portland Art Museum and toured nine other cities. More than 80,000 people visited for a Vincent van Gogh exhibition in 1959, the proceeds from which were used to purchase Water Lilies by Claude Monet. The 1950s also witnessed the creation of the museum's Docent Council in 1955, which created a core group of volunteers who continue to serve the museum to this day.
In the 1960s, the museum underwent another major renovation to build the Hoffman Memorial Wing, named for L. Hawley Hoffman, who served as president of the museum twice. Funded by the museum's first capital campaign, the new wing began construction in November 1968 and was finished in September 1970. Pietro Belluschi served as the architect again, and the project allowed him to realize a complete vision for the museum that he had conceived nearly 40 years earlier. The expansion created classroom and studio space for the Museum Art School, a sculpture mall, a new vault for the collections, and an auditorium.
Over the course of the next several decades, the collections and programs of the Portland Art Museum continued to grow and evolve. In 1978, Vivian and Gordon Gilkey began their association with the museum, bringing with them an extraordinary collection of thousands of works on paper that would eventually lead to the opening of the Vivian and Gordon Gilkey Center for Graphic Arts in 1993. Also in 1978, the Northwest Film Center was incorporated into the museum, offering a wide range of film festivals, classes, and outreach programs focused on the moving image arts.
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Famous quotes containing the words post and/or war:
“My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet and the hospital. I sometimes discuss the application of a compress or a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of a political movement. I make gruel—not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“Whoever lights the torch of war in Europe can wish for nothing but chaos.”
—Adolf Hitler (1889–1945)