april | may | june | 2012 - Santa Barbara Museum of Art

12
gift to SBMA / program highlight
Museum receives Major Gift from the eichholz foundation
From top: Larry Feinberg, SBMA’s Robert
and Mercedes Eichholz Director and
Mercedes Eichholz in 2008 during the
exhibition Merci!: Selections from the
Robert B. and Mercedes H. Eichholz
Collection
Mercedes and Robert Eichholz in 1963
Pasadena to Santa Barbara
free community celebration
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is pleased to announce that a gift of $5.5 million
was recently pledged by the newly-formed Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation
to endow the Museum’s Director position. The post, currently held by Larry Feinberg,
will henceforth be known as the Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Director.
The Foundation’s Chairperson, Mercedes Eichholz, states, “The importance of adding
stability to the Museum by funding the Museum Director position, was key in the
decision of the Foundation.” She goes on to note, “I hope this will encourage, even
challenge, others in the community to step up and underwrite curatorial positions at
the Museum or otherwise contribute to the Museum's endowment fund.”
Larry Feinberg states, “This is a major, transformative gift for the Museum — it not
only greatly helps the institution financially, but also an endowed director’s chair
elevates SBMA’s stature, particularly, in this case, through the association with such
an eminent and generous person and family in this community. We are extremely
grateful for this gift, and are proud of this enduring relationship.” On a more personal
note, Feinberg continues, “I could not be more honored and touched to have my
On February 26, over 1,200 members of the community celebrated the exhibition Pasadena to
Santa Barbara: A Selected History of Art in Southern California, 1951 – 1969 and its inclusion in the
unprecedented Pacific Standard Time initiative.
In the plaza, the public enjoyed an eclectic mix of live music from Santa Barbara’s own Dadainspired
band Headless Household, including a brief re-visiting of Intersphere, a visual and aural
project originally created for SBMA by Richard Dunlap in 1981. In addition to Dick Dunlap, musicians
included Joseph Woodard, Tom Lackner, Chris Symer, Tom Buckner, and Glen Phillips.
Attendees of all ages experienced Now and Then, a re-invention and homage to the poetry- and
jazz-laced performance created by artist Richards Ruben in Pasadena 1962 — led by noted local
poets Paul Willis, Perie Longo, David Starkey, and Chryss Yost, with improvised jazz iterations by Jon
Nathan on percussion and Jim Connelly on bass.
Guests also engaged in Patrick Melroy’s Duchampian-inspired Five Minute Found Object Sculpture
Game, and created pedestal-worthy pieces from scraps, tubes, rubber, and the ubiquitous duct tape.
Others enjoyed making their own Modernist masterpieces with two interactive art projects lead by the
Museum’s Teaching Artists.
In the galleries, contemporary Argentinian composer Frederico Llach created Perishable Music during
which five musicians acted as sound sculptures and responded to works in the exhibition from a
carefully-timed score that was shredded after each performance.
Artists Samantha Fretwell and Katy McCarthy ran the staring contest, Gaze and Glance Acquisitioners
Face Off, a performance piece that timed length of time visitors spent looking at art as if an athletic
competition.
Cool met comfortable with the grand opening of The Learning Lounge, an interactive reading and
media resource room for all ages. Projections, books, catalogs, art activities, and family guides are
available for free in this mid-century inspired lounge throughout the run of the exhibition. Visitors can
add their comments or artworks by posting them on the wall or dropping them in the Pasadena to
Santa Barbara post box.
The celebration was an exuberant, improvisational tribute to the art on view in Pasadena to Santa
Barbara and to the spirit with which it was created.
name and position connected with someone for whom I have so much admiration
and affection.”
Ken Anderson, Chair of the Museum’s Board of Trustees adds, “The Board is
immensely grateful to Mercedes and her family for their continued leadership
and extraordinary generosity in helping to make the Museum the premier cultural
institution it is. This new commitment will greatly assist SBMA achieve its mission
and goals as we approach our 75th anniversary, and we hope inspire other friends
of the Museum as well.”
Mercedes Eichholz and her late husband Robert have been active supporters of
the arts for decades. Mr. and Mrs. Eichholz joined the Museum when they arrived
in Santa Barbara County in 1979. While continuing her active involvement with the
National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC after Robert’s death in 1983, she became
more active in SBMA activities, becoming a Trustee at the Santa Barbara Museum
of Art in 1985 and serving as President of the Board of Trustees from 2001 to
2003. In addition, she has served on the Exhibitions and Acquisitions Committee
(now called the Collections Committee) since 1984 — chairing the committee for
a number of terms―and on the Finance, Buildings and Grounds, and Personnel
Committees.
In 1989, Mrs. Eichholz turned her energies to acquiring works of art for SBMA in
her position as chair of the Arts Endowment Committee. She and her committee
members, together with Museum curators, succeeded in bringing in 1,600 works
of art in a single year. A devotee of contemporary art, Mrs. Eichholz also helped
found the support group Friends of Contemporary Art (now called The Museum
Contemporaries) and is a devoted supporter of PhotoFutures. In 2008, SBMA
celebrated her generosity with Merci!: Selections from the Robert B. and Mercedes
H. Eichholz Collection, an exhibition that featured a sampling of more than 20 works
from the Eichholz collection that she had either given or promised to the Museum.
Mrs. Eichholz was awarded the Wright S. Ludington Award in 2000 for the
extraordinary time, gifts, and expertise she has given to the Museum, and remains a
Life Honorary Trustee.