October 14, 2004 – May 2, 2005
Chicago Architecture Foundation
Doug and Dale Anderson, art collectors.
Photographed in their New York City apartment
Doug and Dale Anderson
Doug and Dale Anderson have donated over 450 pieces to the Racine Art Museum since the early 1990's. Dale Anderson is on the museum board, and she and Doug lead a group of out-of-town supporters called the RAM Society. The couple plays an active role in supporting exhibitions and educational programs that expand the visibility of contemporary craft and, most importantly, create relationships between institutions. They foster an environment where museums can share resources and co-curate exhibits out of each other's inventory.
Dale is an aggressive collector, and I can't live in a place that looks like a warehouse. So the deal is that Dale keeps buying, but every spring I go through the apartment and prune. We give it to museums that can show the work, promote the artists, and build a clientele for the artists. In order to do that, we have come to work with a lot of museums. The one we really love is the Racine Art Museum.
At an auction at the American Craft Museum, Dale bought an immense piece of ceramic sculpture by a guy named Jack Earl. It was fabulous, but it was three times the size of anything we could have here in our apartment. So we called Bruce Pepich and said, “Guess what you're getting.” That was in 1991 and it was the first piece that we gave him.
Now, the facility is going to end up leading the collection, as the collection led the new facility to begin with. There is a tremendous core of people all around the country who love Bruce Pepich. Now that he has a really fine building, they are looking forward to giving him work.—Doug Anderson