WCU Stories      November 26, 2024

By Bill Studenc

The Western Carolina University Fine Art Museum at the John W. Bardo Fine and Performing Arts Center will be broadening the scope of artists represented in its holdings thanks to contributions from a Macon County couple.

Franklin residents William Banks Hinshaw and Robin Markle Hinshaw recently made gifts and pledges totaling $125,000 to endow a fund to build and sustain equality in the permanent collections of the WCU Fine Art Museum.

The philanthropic support will help the museum make strategic purchases of artwork for its collection to create a more equitable and comprehensive understanding of contemporary American art for WCU students and members of the community, said Denise Drury Homewood, executive director of the Bardo Arts Center, part of the David Orr Belcher College of Fine and Performing Arts.

WCU Fine Art Museum staff and students in 2019 began an inventory of the artists whose works are included in the museum’s holdings. “Like so many other collecting institutions, our research determined that the museum’s collection lacks representation by artists of color, women artists and LGBTQ+ artists,” Drury Homewood said.

That inventory resulted in the 2020 establishment of the WCU Fine Art Museum Collection and Acquisition Fund, the focus of which is to build and sustain equity in the museum’s permanent collection, through donations from community members and WCU faculty and staff, she said.

“Over the years, several donors have contributed to this fund, enabling the purchase of significant works of art. The endowment of this fund by Banks and Robin is a major milestone for the WCU Fine Art Museum, Bardo Arts Center and Belcher College's ongoing equality work. This gift is exceptionally important because it provides funding in perpetuity for the strategic growth of the museum's collection with a focus on equitable representation of artists,” Drury Homewood said.

“This fund is designed to enable the museum to acquire artwork that amplifies the voices of historically marginalized artists in our collection, ensuring that their stories are shared with our campus community and the greater Western North Carolina region,” she said. “Though we have made strides over the years through initiatives such as the exhibition series ‘Cultivating Collections’ spearheaded by the museum’s curator, Carolyn Grosch, we recognize that museums play a role in determining what our society remembers, whose stories are told and what objects are deemed worthy of consideration.”

Practicing physicians as Markle and Hinshaw Gynecology in Franklin, the Hinshaws came to discover Western Carolina University shortly after their arrival in Macon County in 2000. Banks Hinshaw accepted an invitation to lecture at a class at WCU on the dangers of certain medications prescribed for osteoporosis, a subject he has followed and published on since 1995.

The Hinshaws became more aware of the university after they worked with a graduate from WCU’s doctoral program in family nurse practitioner and collaborated with another graduate of that program in a project to generate interest in a new Hospice House in Franklin.

“Much later, I had an idea that WCU might have an interest in my small collection of mid-20th century Latin American fine art that I deemed needed a permanent home,” Banks Hinshaw said. “Initially, offering these works to WCU was actually a result of proximity, but the response from the university, while delayed by the COVID-19 crisis, was so warm and generous that my wife and I became much more aware of the community involvement of WCU and the needs and aspirations of the museum.”

Those conversations about adding the Hinshaws’ art from Latin America to the museum collection spurred discussion about possible financial contributions, he said.

“The departmental response to the offer of the art led to a better understanding of the needs of the department,” Banks Hinshaw said. “Frankly, donations of the kind we could make would have little impact at my alma maters of Duke and Stanford. But our interest in the subject, while unrelated to our professions, made a donation to WCU’s art department possibly being more meaningful and thus more desirable. Subsequent interviews with the staff and administrators have confirmed this opinion.”

WCU Fine Art Museum staff and its collection committee are currently in the process of evaluating the Hinshaws’ art collection as a step in the process of making that gift of artwork a reality.

Drury Homewood described her initial meeting with Banks and Robin Hinshaw as “a chance encounter.”

“For years, they have had a morning exercise routine of walking around campus. One day last winter, they just decided to stop into the Bardo Arts Center where I greeted them and invited them on an impromptu tour of the building,” she said. “We ended the tour at the Fine Art Museum and shared information about our collecting focus.”

That focus on contemporary art of the Americas includes any artwork made after 1950 by artists living and working in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean, she said.

“We connected over our shared interest in Latin American art,” Drury Homewood said. “After their visit, they invited Carolyn Grosch, our curator of collections and exhibitions, and me to their home to learn more about their collection of art by primarily Latin American artists. During our visit to their home and over the course of our conversations together, it became clear how much they value and support international as well as regional artists. I'm delighted that their interest will continue in this endowment.”

The Hinshaws’ gift was announced Thursday, Nov. 21, during a reception for the WCU Fine Art Museum’s current exhibition, “At the Table.” Continuing through Dec. 6, the exhibition is inspired by the university's 2023-2024 campus theme of “Community and Belongingness” and ties in with recent conversations in the Western North Carolina community about the importance of having one’s voice heard and being offered “a seat at the table.”

Their gift comes as WCU approaches the public launch of its “Fill the Western Sky” comprehensive fundraising campaign, an effort to raise a minimum of $75 million for the university’s academic, student engagement and athletics programs.

For more information about the “Fill the Western Sky” campaign or to make a contribution, visit WesternSky.wcu.edu, call 828-227-7124 or email advancement@wcu.edu.

To make a contribution in support of the WCU Fine Art Museum or the David Orr Belcher College of Fine and Performing Arts, visit the Friends of the Arts website.