Tang's tenth anniversary luncheon is a time for reflection

To hear the key players in the creation of the Tang Museum tell it, the idea of a teaching museum on the Skidmore campus was a big gamble. "I was skeptical, to say the least," said Oscar Tang at a luncheon celebration at the museum on Saturday of Celebration Weekend. "I had the traditional idea of a museum based on an art collection, and I saw nothing there to justify a new museum." He added that Skidmore's finances were in no shape to take on the endeavor, given that the Journey Campaign seemed stuck at about 65 percent of its $78 million goal. 

But after hearing then-President David H. Porter's "passion for this vision" and consulting the respected campus planner and close friend Lo-Yi Chan, he became a believer. "We concluded that if anyone could do it, it would be Skidmore. If we could pull off this new concept of a teaching museum, it would be an exciting project." And so he pledged the lead gift that enabled Skidmore to build the museum and to name it the Frances Young Tang '61 Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, in memory of his late wife. His gift also helped accelerate the Journey Campaign, which exceeded its goal by raising over $85 million.

Said President Emeritus Porter at the luncheon, "This was a building against the odds, but this museum would make Skidmore more visible. The Tang represented a brave new world that would give us space to invite the unexpected."

Among those in attendance were a number of other Skidmore leaders who were instrumental in the creation of the Tang Museum, including, former board chair Joan Layng Dayton '63, former President Jamienne S. Studley, inaugural Tang director Charles Stainback, trustee Wilma Stein "Billie" Tisch '48, and Tang Advisory Council member Susan Rabinowitz Malloy '45.

"At Skidmore, we say both that creative thought matters and that creative thought, if it truly is to count, must be made material," President Philip A. Glotzbach told the gathering. "Nowhere on campus do these principles apply with more force than here at the Tang, where new areas of cross-cutting, multidisciplinary knowledge are explored through object exhibitions."

Said Dayton Director John Weber in concluding the luncheon, "The Tang has indeed become a dynamic, envied, and at times copied fixture in the world of college and university museums and an admired presence in the national museum arena as a whole."

Dedication of the Tang's Illumination Gallery

The Saturday celebration at the Tang included the dedication of the museum's newest named space, the Illumination Gallery, named in honor the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund. The gallery is a "bridge" on the Tang's second floor that overlooks the atrium and the entrance to the Wachenheim Gallery.

The Illumination Fund recently awarded Skidmore a grant of $1.2 million in support of the Tang's museum-based learning program. The grant virtually fulfilled a three-to-one matching grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, guaranteeing that the College would achieve the $4.8 million endowment needed to ensure the continuance of key components already in process at the Tang. 

"The Illumination Fund is about access and opportunity," said Ms. Tisch at the dedication ceremony, noting that the Tang Museum's mission and programming are in line with those principles. "The Tang has become a resource for the whole Albany area," added Ms. Tisch, whose daughter Emily graduated in 2004.

Said President Glotzbach, "Laurie Tisch has been a wonderful friend of the Tang, almost since its inception. . . Her most recent contribution has provided yet another bridge to future opportunities by enabling us to leverage her gift to secure the Mellon Foundation matching grant and to move the Tang and its programs to the next level in their development and sophistication.   It also represented a most significant addition to our campaign total." 

A Calder original on loan to the Tang

Thanks to the generosity of the family of the late Gay Clark '62, the Tang Museum now houses an Alexander Calder mobile, Roxbury '49. Gay's family and friends gathered at the Tang on Thursday, Oct. 14, as part of Celebration Weekend, to honor her memory and to admire the Calder work. The mobile, on extended loan to the Tang, hangs in the atrium alongside the main stairway.