Patrons of arts pledge $500,000 to BAM
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The Philadelphia-based Klorfine Foundation has pledged $100,000 a year for five years to the Bellevue Art Museum. The financially strapped museum closed last September and is scheduled to reopen in October if the board can raise $3 million.
Philanthropists Leonard and Norma Klorfine divide their time between homes in Seattle and Philadelphia and are active in the arts in both cities.
Leonard Klorfine, a retired real-estate investor, is on the board of Pilchuck Glass School as well as the Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia. Norma Klorfine is involved with the Philadelphia Museum of Art and has been elected to the board at BAM.
Part of BAM's gift from the foundation is earmarked for establishing a Pilchuck Glass School Gallery in former classrooms on the museum's second floor. The gallery will be exclusively devoted to artists associated with the Stanwood school, co-founded by Dale Chihuly.
In April, BAM trustees announced partnership arrangements with both Pilchuck and Seattle's Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.
In addition to a permanent Pilchuck Gallery, BAM will be able to draw on the Burke's extensive collection of ethnic craft objects from around the world for use in exhibitions. In the 1990s, while still housed at the Bellevue Square mall, BAM gave up its own collection to the Tacoma Art Museum in exchange for borrowing rights.
If the museum meets its fund-raising goal and reopens as planned, it will have a revised mission committed to craft, design and arts, with a strong focus on work by Northwest artists.
The building interior will have a new look, too, with additional gallery space, a remodeled cafe and a more welcoming lobby geared toward community events.
Sheila Farr: sfarr@seattletimes.com