Tuesday, November 26, 2002

CONTACT: Bonnie Ramsey, 706/542-0451, buramsey@uga.edu

GEORGIA MUSEUM OF ART RECEIVES GIFT ESTIMATED AT $6.3 MILLION; MORE THAN $500,000 RAISED DURING BIENNIAL ELEGANT SALUTE

ATHENS, Ga. — The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia has received a gift estimated at $6.3 million from Martha Daura of Vero Beach, Fla.

Established in honor of her father, Pierre Daura, the gift includes works of art and a cash gift of $2 million. The endowment will be used to create the Pierre Daura Center in the museum and to hire a Daura Curator of European Art.

Martha Daura announced the gift Nov. 23 at the museum’s eighth biennial Elegant Salute, a fund-raising event sponsored by the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art. This year’s event, held against a backdrop of centuries-old Italian Renaissance paintings and named "Bella Sera" as a salute to Italy, raised more than $500,000.

"This generous gift will continue the Georgia Museum’s rise into the upper echelon of university museums," said UGA President Michael F. Adams. "I am deeply grateful to Martha Daura for her gift, which will serve as a lasting memorial to her father and his love of 20th-century European and American art."

In announcing the gift, Martha Daura said, "I am very pleased, indeed honored, that the Georgia Museum of Art, with an extensive and representative collection of art by my father, will become the center for the Daura scholarship. I am confident that this association with a great university and dynamic museum will make it possible for even more people, far beyond the Athens community, to enjoy and appreciate the art by Pierre Daura."

Pierre Daura is an important figure in the history of 20th-century European and American art. He was one of the founders of the group Cercle et Carré, which believed the geometric purity of the circle and the square could be used to enrich the work of Modernist artists. Daura, who taught at Randolph Macon College for Women and Lynchburg College, produced a body of work representative of early globalism with its references to both North American and European culture.

This year’s Elegant Salute drew several hundred members of the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art from across the state. Mrs. B. Heyward Allen Jr. of Athens was chair of the event and her husband, Buddy, was chair of the fund-raising committee.

William U. Eiland, director of the museum, said proceeds from the event will fund museum programs and exhibitions, such as the current exhibition "Sacred Treasures: Early Italian Paintings from Southern Collections," which will be on display through the end of this year.

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