Congratulations to Philbrook, Fred Jones Museums

Congratulations to everyone involved in the news, announced yesterday, that the renowned Adkins collection would be shared by Tulsa, Oklahoma's Philbrook Museum and the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. I am especially pleased for my friend Christina Burke, a museum anthropologist who serves as Philbrook's Curator of Native American and Non-Western Art. Here are are the opening paragraphs of the Philbrook's press release.

TULSA - Ted M. Riseling, Chairman of the Adkins foundation Board, announced today that the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa and the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma have been jointly selected to receive the Eugene B. Adkins collection of art. The joint partnership by Philbrook and OU was among many proposals submitted by leading museums across the country.

The Adkins Collection, valued at approximately $50 million, is among the most important private collections in the nation of works by the Taos artists as well as Native American works of art. It includes more than 3,300 objects in a number of categories, including 1,100 two-dimensional works, 370 pieces of pottery, over 1,600 examples of jewelry and silverwork, and nearly 250 pieces of other Native arts.

The selection of the Philbrook-OU partnership was announced at a press conference in Tulsa at the Philbrook Museum of Art today, which included Riseling, Randall Suffolk, Executive Director of the Philbrook Museum of Art, and David Boren, President of the University of Oklahoma.

Fine the full release here and the OU release here.