This Friday, the Smith College Board of Trustees announced that the Smith College Museum of Art (SCMA) will name the soon-to-be-created Asian art gallery after retiring President Carol T. Christ.
The new gallery will be known as the Carol T. Christ Asian Art Gallery. Funded by gifts from trustees, including a foundational gift from Peggy Block Danziger ’62, the named gallery will recognize, in the words of Board Chair Betty Eveillard ’69, President Christ’s “outstanding service to the college.”
Betty announced the naming of the gallery at the board’s final meeting of the year. She expressed the trustees’ desire to thank President Christ for all her good work on Smith’s behalf and her pleasure that a permanent recognition of her presidency could be created in the context of the arts.
Of the surprise naming announcement, President Christ said, “Nothing could please me more. The Museum has been such a source of joy to me and Paul. It is truly a jewel of the college.”
Art from Asia is the most rapidly developing area of the SCMA collection. The new 1,250-square-foot gallery will be the first dedicated to Asian art and will be used to showcase the scope of the museum’s holdings and to facilitate even greater integration of Asian art across the curriculum. It will be created through the reconfiguration of space on the museum’s lower level and is expected to be open in fall 2015.
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