The Boise Art Museum (BAM) is located at 670 Julia Davis Drive in

Boise, Idaho Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown are ...

, and is part of a series of public museums and cultural attractions in

Julia Davis Park Julia Davis Park is a municipal park in the downtown region of Boise, Idaho. Created in 1907 with a land donation from Thomas Jefferson Davis, it is the first park in the "String of Pearls", the group of parks operated by the Boise Parks and Recr ...

. It is the permanent home of a growing collection of

contemporary realism The contemporary realism movement is a worldwide style of painting which came into existence c. 1960s and early 1970s. Featuring a straightforward approach to representation practiced by artists such as Philip Pearlstein, Alex Katz, Jack Beal an ...

, modern and contemporary

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

, as well as the largest public collection of works by acclaimed Idaho

outsider artist Outsider art is art made by self-taught or supposedly naïve artists with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates ...

and bookmaker

James Charles Castle James Castle (September 25, 1899 – October 26, 1977) was an American artist born in Garden Valley, Idaho. Although Castle did not know about the art world outside of his small community, his work ran parallel to the development of 20th-century ...

. The museum also features major traveling exhibitions and installations throughout the year. The museum began as the Boise Gallery of Art, opening in 1937 through a partnership between the Boise Art Association, the City of Boise and the Federal Works Progress Administration as a space for people living in the Boise area to see local artists, traveling exhibitions and artwork on loan. The museum's original

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

and

Egyptian Revival Egyptian Revival is an architectural style that uses the motifs and imagery of ancient Egypt. It is attributed generally to the public awareness of ancient Egyptian monuments generated by Napoleon's conquest of Egypt and Admiral Nelson's defeat ...

building was renovated in 1972 and again in 1988 when the name was changed to the Boise Art Museum and the museum increased focus on the development of a permanent collection and educational programming. In 1997, the museum was expanded again to include larger administrative offices, storage, a sculpture court and educational studios. Today the Boise Art Museum is the only AAM accredited museum collecting fine art in Idaho and functions as a center for fine arts in the

Treasure Valley The Treasure Valley is a valley in the western United States, primarily in southwestern Idaho, where the Payette, Boise, Weiser, Malheur, Owyhee, and Burnt rivers drain into the Snake River. It includes all the lowland areas from Vale in rur ...

Collection

1934–1988

Collecting began under the Boise Art Association in 1934, who began amassing their collection before the Boise Gallery of Art had begun construction. The first work purchased by the Association was a painting by Harvey Gregory Pruscheck, for a cost of $100, after the painting was in their exhibition in the Boise Hotel (now the Hoff Building). Another early donation, the oil painting ''Mustard Field'' by Fanny Dike Burns, came in memory of the artist after the painting was included in a show in May 1933. By 1955, the small collection included works from the artists Helen Aupperle, Reeves Ulher, Olaf Moller, Robert Phillip, Alexis J. Fournier, W. Blair, W.E. Buhk, William Silva,

LeConte Stewart __NOTOC__ LeConte Stewart (April 15, 1891 – June 6, 1990) was a Latter-day Saint artist primarily known for his landscapes of rural Utah. His media included oils, watercolors, pastel and charcoal, as well as etchings, linocuts, and lithographs ...

, Luigi Kasimir, Warren Squires, Peter Hurd,

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

, and Dorothy Andrews. The 1960s saw an increase of interest in development of the collection as the Boise Gallery of Art increased exhibition programming and hired its first professional staff. A 1963 donation by Robert V. Hansberger of six oil paintings, then valued at $12,350, was the largest donation the Association had received to date. Adding to other gifts and donations earlier that year, it included ''Halcyon Days'' by Flavin Gabral, ''House for Rent'' and ''Precarious Position'' by Michael Frary, ''Sierra Grande'' by

Richard Haines Richard Haines (born Marion, Iowa, December 29, 1906, died, Los Angeles, California October 9, 1984) was an American New Deal muralist.University of Central Arkansas.Arkansas Post Office Murals. Murals Murals were produced from 1934 to 1943 i ...

, ''Duet'' by Dan Lutz and ''From Hilltop'' by

Eric Sloane Eric Sloane (born Everard Jean Hinrichs) (27 February 1905 – 5 March 1985) was an American landscape painter, illustrator, and author of illustrated books on the cultural history and folklore of America. Life and career Eric Sloane was born ...

. In 1967, the Association acquired ''Silvertone 17 Inch Portable Television'', an assemblage by

Edward Kienholz Edward Ralph Kienholz (October 23, 1927 – June 10, 1994) was an American Installation art, installation artist and assemblage (art), assemblage sculpture, sculptor whose work was highly critical of aspects of modern life. From 1972 onwards, he ...

. Joseph Stewart, the then director of the Boise Gallery of Art, remarked of the sculpture:

An ordinary 17-inch portable television is no more or less significant than other products of 20th century technology. What makes them significant - from the social point of view - are the programs. Generally, television programs are absurd, juvenile and 'lacking in redeeming social significance'. In muting the television set, and in making it so heavy that two men can hardly lift it, Kienholz has snapped us from the spell of the networks. He forces us to look at his apparatus before which we spend so much time and around which we arrange family activities.

By 1969, the Boise Junior League had donated six works of art to the Boise Art Association, including a work titled ''Primaevus'' by artist Jimmie Faulkner and the marble sculpture ''Age of Innocence'' by Alfred Kober. In the same year, Louise Odencrantz of New York donated her collection of more than 100 dolls from various cultures after an exhibition where the dolls were allowed to be handled by children from the general public. The Boise Gallery of Art's eagerness for a high-quality collection continued into the 1970s and '80s. According to Ric Collier, the then curator of art, the ideal collection for the Gallery should act as a record of the Gallery's exhibits, should demonstrate the Gallery's commitment to Idaho artists, and should help build the reputation of the Gallery in the field. In 1979, the Idaho Commission on the Arts gave the Gallery $2,000 to buy Idaho art, which they used to buy ''Last Black Triangle'' by Boyd Wright, as well as works by David Wharton, Charles Crist, and a commissioned work by Montana artist Dana Boussard. In 1980, the Gallery received donations from both the

American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headq ...

, of a work by

Sam Francis Samuel Lewis Francis (June 25, 1923 – November 4, 1994) was an American painter and printmaker. Early life Sam Francis was born in San Mateo, California,

, as well as the estate of the wife of Reginald Marsh, of four of the artist's works.

Since 1988

The Boise Art Museum began actively collecting in 1988 under curator Sandy Harthorn, who helped develop the permanent collection to 1,200 objects in 1991 and to 3,500 by her retirement in 2015. According to Harthorn, changing the name from the Boise Gallery of Art to the Boise Art Museum changes how to think about the institution: "A gallery shows temporary exhibitions, whereas a museum collects and houses a permanent collection."Flagg, Marianne, Idaho Statesman, Museum's Artful Growth (Boise, Idaho) 21 March 2000, Pg. 1E, 2E The museum's collecting mission focuses on 20th century realism and ceramics from American, Northwest and Idaho artists. The collection has, however, amassed objects from across the United States, Europe and East Asia as growth of the collection has relied largely upon donations from artists, galleries and collectors. In 2000, the Museum received 23 works of contemporary realism from Peter and Eileen Norton, a part of more than 1,000 works of art the then couple donated to 29 museums across the United States. The donation included works by

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

Robert Arneson Robert Carston Arneson (September 4, 1930 – November 2, 1992) was an American sculptor and professor of ceramics in the Art department at University of California, Davis for nearly three decades. Early life and education Robert Carston Arn ...

, April Gornik,

Lawrence Gipe Lawrence Gipe (born 1962 in Baltimore, Maryland), is an American painter, independent curator, and Associate Professor of 2D studies at The University of Arizona, Tucson. He received a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (1984) and an MFA fr ...

, F. Scott Hess and Kent Twitchell. These works, most created in the 1980s and early 1990s, were selected to complement the collection of American realism previously donated by Sun Valley art collector Glenn C. Janss. This came after a donation of 166 works by American, Australian, British and Asian artists by John Takehara. In 2002, Wilfred Davis Fletcher donated 117 artworks to the Museum, a gift valued at over $1 million. The collection consisted mostly of contemporary abstract works and was well received as a complement to the existing collection of realism.

Architecture

The last addition in 1997-8 was managed by the local architecture firm, CSHQA, and added the distinctive sculpture court and sculpture garden to the rear of the building. This increased its facilities by 13,800 square feet to a total of 34,800 square feet.

History

The Boise Art Association was founded on October 8, 1931. At the first meeting, which more than 50 people attended, the articles of incorporation adopted gave the purpose of the organization "to create in the minds of Boise and other Idaho people an increased appreciation for the fine and applied arts; to make a collection of works of art; to receive gifts and bequests for the use of the Boise Art Association and to acquire and maintain a suitable gallery in which works of art may be displayed."Idaho Daily Statesman, Artists Hold First Meeting: Boise Association Plans Campaign to Increase Membership (Boise, Idaho) 7 October 1931, Pg. 8

References