Gala chair Pilar Henry and honorary chair Peggy Sewell hosted a May 16th reception celebrating this fall’s inaugural Meadows MuseumMasterpiece Gala.
Held at the home of Pilar and Jay Henry, the event brought together more than 40 host committee members and supporters, who mingled over cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Midway through the event, SMU President R. Gerald Turner gathered the crowd for brief remarks.
Turner welcomed everyone and thanked them for their attendance at the evening’s celebration. He extended his gratitude to party hosts Pilar and Jay Henry, as well as Gala honorary chairs Peggy and Carl Sewell. He then acknowledged Linda Custard, chair of the Meadows Museum Advisory Council and recently named SMU Board of Trustees trustee emerita,and Linda Perryman Evans, President and CEO of The Meadows Foundation, for their extraordinary support of the Meadows School and the Meadows Museum. He recognized Mike Boone, chair of SMU Board of Trustees; Nancy Dedman, SMU benefactor; Brad Cheves, SMU vice president for development and external affairs; and Sam Holland, the Algur H. Meadows Dean of Meadows School of the Arts. President Turner then invited Mark Roglán, the Linda P. and William A. Custard Director of the Meadows Museum,to address the group.
Roglán echoed his thanks to all for their support of the Meadows Museum and the first annual Masterpiece Gala, which will be held on Saturday, October 13, 2018, at the Meadows Museum. He announced that Gala proceeds will help launchan endowment fund for the Museum’s Director of Education position,a critical role for the museum and its education programs.
He also shared that he could not think of a more appropriate backdrop than the work of Spanish artist Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) for the fall Gala, which is titled The Color of Dreamsand will coincide withthe exhibition Dalí: Poetics of the Small, 1929–1936, comprised of nearly two dozen of Dalí’s small-scale paintings from the height of his Surrealist period. Additionally, in conjunction with the Dalí exhibition, the museum will showcase for the first time a complete limited-edition set of lithographs by Dalí titled Aliyah, given to the Meadows Museum by Linda and Bill Custard last year in honor of Meadows Museum Advisory Council member the Honorable Janet Pollman Kafka and her twentieth year as Honorary Consul of Spain in Dallas.
President Turner concluded with final thanks and encouragement to all to make plans to attend the October 13 fundraiser.
Following remarks, attendees enjoyed music by Eddie Healy before the evening came to a close.
Guests in attendance at the Meadows Museum Masterpiece Galahost committee reception included: Hosts Pilar and Jay Henry, Peggy Sewell, Linda and Bill Custard, Linda Perryman Evans, Gail and Gerald Turner, Nancy Dedman, Brad Cheves, Beth and Sam Holland, Kathleen and MarkRoglán, Dolores and Larry Barzune, Stuart Bumpas, Mary Ann Cree, Laura Hurt, Janet Kafka, Melinda and Mark Knowles, Michelle Lockhart, Lynn and Allan McBee, Stacey McCord, Barbara and Mike McKenzie, Jenny and Richard Mullen, Cyrena Nolan, Adriana and Guillermo Perales, Bliss Smith, Trinka Taylor, and Julie and George Tobolowsky.
The 2018 Meadows Museum Masterpiece Gala: The Color of Dreamswill be held at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 13, 2018, at the Meadows Museum. The black-tie event will include a cocktail reception on the plaza featuring dance performances by SMU students, followed by a seated dinner in the museum’s galleries catered by Cassandra Fine Catering. Guests will also enjoy an exclusive musical performance, live music by Cuvée and dancing.
Sponsorships for the 2018 Meadows MuseumMasterpiece Galarange from $2,500 to $50,000 and are available now; individual tickets will be available in September. For more information or to purchase a sponsorship, contact meadowsgiving@smu.edu,call 214.768.4189 or visit https://meadowsmuseumdallas.org/gala/.
About the Director of Education Endowment Fund
The Meadows Museum Masterpiece Gala seeks to establish an endowment for the museum’s Director of Education position. The endowment will ensure strong leadership of the museum’s education and outreach efforts in perpetuity, establishing a healthy financial base from which to recruit and retain the highest-quality staff and allowing the museum to direct more resources toward its exceptional programming endeavors. The Meadows Museum annually hosts thousands of visitors, teachers, and K-12 and SMU students through symposia, lectures, workshops, gallery talks and guided tours. Additionally, it has received recognition for its accessible programming and resources that welcome audiences of all abilities, with a particular focus on adults with early stage dementia and their care partners, and visitors who are blind or have low vision.
About the Meadows Museum
The Meadows Museum is the leading U.S. institution focused on the study and presentation of the art of Spain. In 1962, Dallas businessman and philanthropist Algur H. Meadows donated his private collection of Spanish paintings, as well as funds to start a museum, to Southern Methodist University. The museum opened to the public in 1965, marking the first step in fulfilling Meadows’s vision to create “a small Prado for Texas.” Today, the Meadows is home to one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Spanish art outside of Spain. The collection spans from the 10th to the 21st centuries and includes medieval objects, Renaissance and Baroque sculptures, and major paintings by Golden Age and modern masters.