Portland Art Museum
Portland OR

Portland Art Museum, Mark Building façade, North Building Project

The Portland Art Museum was founded in 1892. This fall it celebrates the inauguration of the newly renovated Mark Building and Center for Modern and Contemporary Art (CMCA). Ann Beha of Boston was hired in 2001 for the redesign of the $40 million North Building Project. Beha’s company is known for contemporary architectural expression and the revitalization of historic resources.

Portland Art Museum, Mark Building, south elevation and sculpture courtyard, North Building Project [Portland Art Museum, Portland OR]

Edward Ralph Kienholz, Useful Art #5: The Western Motel (1992), mixed media [Portland Art Museum, Portland OR, date]

The 28,000 square feet of CMCA’s galleries are devoted to showcasing over 400 works from the Museum’s permanent collection. Among the most noteworthy are paintings by Cezanne and Monet. Many of the mid-20th century holdings are from the recently acquired Clement Greenberg: A Critic’s Collection, which includes works by Jackson Pollock, Hans Hofmann and Anthony Caro, among others. Quintessential 20th century artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Cindy Sherman and Julian Schnabel are represented, as well as, Northwest artists Louis Bunce, Henk Pander, Lee Kelly and Judy Cooke, and multimedia artists Matthew McCaslin and Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz.

The CMCA also features a delightful selection of decorative arts in glass, clay and metal and an impressive photography gallery exhibiting the work of major figures like Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham and Minor White. Highlighting to the Museum’s renovation is the placement of Roy Lichtenstein’s outdoor sculpture Brushstrokes (1996) next to the Mark Building.

Matthew McCaslin, Alaska (1995), television sets, clocks, light bulbs, VCR, electrical hardware, rolling cart [Portland Art Museum, Portland OR, date]

www.portlandartmuseum.org

Allyn Cantor