Pacific Northwest College of Art    Portland, OR

PNCA at 100

When Sue Horn-Caskey and her husband, Rick, first walked through the PNCA at 100 exhibition at the Portland Art Museum in August 2009, they were immediately struck by the historical relevance of PNCA in Portland’s history. The Caskeys were fairly new to Portland at the time, and the exhibition illuminated much about what they have come to love about their new home. It also inspired the Caskeys to begin to expand their personal collection to include PNCA students, alumni and faculty.

The exhibition also prompted the Caskeys to make a contribution to PNCA to document and preserve the exhibition for future generations. Thanks to the Caskeys, PNCA is pleased to present a documentary that explores the rich history and longstanding relationship of two institutions: Pacific Northwest College of Art (formerly the Museum Art School) and Portland Art Museum.

Includes interviews with Sally Lawrence, President Emerita; Tom Manley, President; Lee Kelly ’59; and Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson ’78, Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art, Portland Art Museum.

PNCA at 100 from PNCA on Vimeo.

About the Exhibition

PNCA at 100
Portland Art Museum
June 6 – September 13, 2009
Curated by Bruce Guenther

Since 1909, the artists-faculty, students and alumni of the Museum Art School, now Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA), have made their mark on the Northwest art scene as Portland ’s designers, gallery owners, and the founders of artist cooperatives and arts festivals such as Artquake. The exhibition PNCA at 100 celebrates the PNCA artists who have made the visual arts central to the community at large. Ranging from portraiture and regional landscapes to modernist abstraction and painterly idioms, the artists of the school introduced ideas from the larger world of art to Portland and made them part of the vocabulary of Northwest art. Anna B. Crocker, Harry Wentz, William Givler, Louis Bunce, Michele Russo, Jack McLarty, George Johanson, Manuel Izquierdo, Jay Backstrand, Lucinda Parker and Judy Cooke exemplify the five generations of talent that have shaped the school and the arts community. PNCA at 100 also explores the rich history and longstanding relationship of two institutions: the Portland Art Museum and PNCA. An outgrowth of the 19th-century Portland Sketch Club, the Museum Art School was established by the Museum in 1909 to bring art instruction to a fledgling Western city. From the early days in the rebuilt Ladd School on Southwest Park to the Culpepper Terrace temporary site and into the expanded Hoffman Wing of the Museum in the 1970s, the institution grew with Portland into the distinguished professional art school of the present day. Seeding artists and alumni across the city and nation, the school expanded in stature and size after World War II and was re-named the Pacific Northwest College of Art in 1994 to reflect its larger ambition. With its formal separation from the Museum in 1997, it became an independent educational institution. Reaching an international student body, the school plays an essential role as training ground and resource for the diversification and strength of the Oregon art scene. On view in the Schnitzer Sculpture Court and Collins Gallery and curated by Bruce Guenther, curator of modern and contemporary art.

Video Credits

PNCA extends special recognition to Sue Horn-Caskey and Rick Caskey for making this film possible with their generous gift.

Thank you Sue and Rick for helping to document through film our school’s first century of excellence in art and design education.

Videography: Fritz Lietke and Dayn Arnold

Editing: Dayn Arnold

Images courtesy the artists; Portland Art Museum, Crumpacker Family Library; Pacific Northwest College of Art History Archives

Anna Belle Crocker, Self-Portrait, 1926, oil on panel, Gift of Miss Florence Crocker, 2001.65, Portland Art Museum

Henk Pander, Rodeo, 1966, oil on linen, Museum Purchase: Caroline Ladd Pratt Fund, 67.8, Portland Art Museum. © Henk Pander, Courtesy Laura Russo Gallery.

Lee Kelly, Untitled, 1961, painted steel, Gift of Susan Hammer, 2006.97, Portland Art Museum. © Lee Kelly, Courtesy the artist.

Produced by the Communications and Public Programs Department, Pacific Northwest College of Art

Special thanks to the Portland Art Museum, Lee Kelly, Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson, Sally Lawrence and Tom Manley.

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