Las Vegas Art Museum enters big leagues regarding donations

By Kristen Peterson

Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2007 | 7:14 a.m.

Call it the year of being taken seriously.

The Las Vegas Art Museum doesn't even have an acquisitions committee and isn't soliciting donations but has received several important gifts after receiving artworks from local collectors Wally Goodman and Patrick Duffy at the end of 2005.

New donations by Las Vegas and Los Angeles collectors include works by Cindy Wright, Tim Bavington, Billy Al Bengston, Michael Reafsnyder and David Ryan.

"Their donations fulfilled the prediction that it would inspire other donations," says Renee Coppola, museum deputy director, referring to Goodman and Duffy. "The message was that Las Vegas Art Museum was a great place to donate art, that things were happening here."

The 56-year-old institution, which served most of its years as a community arts center, is now a contemporary art museum, and has become professional in the 18 months since Libby Lumpkin took over as director. The new staff and stronger board have improved the museum's handling and care of important works of art, something that's critical for attracting donations and borrowing works.

Duffy isn't concerned the museum will return to its old ways should staff change, saying he has faith in the board led by James Zieter. The board, he added, is focused on getting the museum accredited.

Duffy and Goodman's original donation included work by Matthew Radford and a promised gift of a work by William T. Wiley. Last month, they donated 44 piecess by artists from Berlin to the San Francisco Bay, including Richard Willenbrink, Thomas Schindler, Norbert Tadeusz, Conrad Brockstedt, Bill Martin, Harold Persico Paris and Sam Richardson.

Ardent patrons, Duffy and Goodman also have donated to Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; the de Young Museum; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

"If you take from a community, be it in business or otherwise, you owe it to a community to contribute back. It's civilized living," Duffy says. "We live here. We really, really believe the directional path that they're on. In due time it's going to be a very fine institution with the acclaim that this city deserves."