Vision & Mission Statement
The McDonough Museum of Art seeks to expand the teaching and research function of the University by generating compelling academic and public programs.
The mission of the McDonough Museum of Art reinforces the mission of the Cliffe College of Creative Arts and that of Youngstown State University in placing academic excellence, scholarship and innovation at the center of our operations.
We work together with faculty, graduate and undergraduate students of the Department of Art to develop programs and exhibitions that enhance the Department’s contemporary and interdisciplinary teaching mission. We therefore align curation with curriculum to strengthen and deepen the educational function of the museum in teaching and training students.
The museum offers a range of dynamic programs that include exhibitions, installations, performances, and lectures inviting campus and community members to discover and explore meaning in contemporary art.
History
The Museum
The John J. McDonough Museum of Art, founded in 1991, is the University Art Museum for Youngstown State University and the Valley’s Premier Center for Contemporary Art. Internationally known architects Gwathmey Siegel & Associates, who worked together with the then local firm Ricciuti, Buchanan and Balog, designed the 20,000 square foot facility. Paul Ricciuti participated in the dedication ceremony held on October 26, 1991. The Museum stands as a testament to Modernist Design in its simplicity and sensitivity to the site. Gwathmey was known for his ability to create buildings that “seamlessly blend into the urban fabric.” The interior galleries and transitional areas are lit by skylights that offer, on their own, shifting aesthetic experiences for the visitor, and appear from the outside as sculptural elements within the overall design. It is a pleasure and a privilege to work in this discrete and elegantly ordered space — by virtue of its inherent beauty and openness, it reminds us everyday why we are there — it’s about the present and the future.
The Man
In 1978, when Dr. John J. McDonough sold his collection of American paintings, Sotheby’s, the auction house that handled the sale, called it a “landmark auction.” At the time, it was the largest sale of American Art by a single collector and became national news. The 63 works McDonough had carefully selected over the previous 12 years formed, according to Thomas Norton, “an almost comprehensive cross-section of the principal artists, themes and periods of representational American Art.” Indeed, the collection was exhibited at major museums across the country before it was dispersed.
Within months of the sale, Dr. McDonough began to form an even finer collection of American Art, this time focusing his attention on the 50 year period between 1875 and 1925. This collection, numbering about 100 painting, earned McDonough the designation “the quintessentially focused collector” by John L. Marion, who conducted the Sotheby auction. “McDonough is thoroughly familiar with the period and has selected carefully and knowledgeably, making his collection a jewel of the art world.”
Despite the fact that many of his paintings increased in value over time, Dr. McDonough said that he did not collect art as a financial investment. “I think paintings should be loved and enjoyed,” he said, “and I don’t think they should be bought for sale and profit, really. You should go into the stock market for that.”
Dr. John J. McDonough belonged to a Youngstown philanthropic tradition dating back over a century, visionaries like Edward Powers, Henry Stambaugh, Joseph Butler, Volney Rogers, to name but a few. An outstanding art collector in his time, Dr. McDonough wanted to ensure YSU had adequate means to foster the growth of interest in what artists of our time have to say to all of us about our shared human experience.
The Gift
In response to the University’s need for exhibition space, YSU, the College of Creative Arts and Communication and the Department of Art got so much more. Dr. John J. McDonough, a Youngstown physician and avid art collector, offered the proceeds of the sale of his painting “Gloucester Harbor” by Childe Hassam to help fund construction of a new building. With additional monies raised with the help of Attorney Paul M Dutton and from the State of Ohio, construction of the Museum began in the fall of 1990 and the building was dedicated on October 26, 1991.
The Architects
In the summer of 1987, architect Paul J. Ricciuti approached New York Architect Charles Gwathmey, FAIA to be the Design Architect for the proposed John J. McDonough Museum of Art at Youngstown State University. Mr. Gwathmey agreed and his firm Gwathmey Siegel became part of the architectural team that was selected by Dr. McDonough and the University to design the Museum. As a Youngstown native, Mr. Ricciuti’s vision of the proposed museum was a modern design statement as a counterpoint to the classic Butler Institute of American Art. The selection of Gwathmey brought to Youngstown an internationally known Architect who worked in the modernist movement.
Robert Siegal recently sent us this statement:
The design of projects at Gwathmey Siegal & Associates Architects has been and is to a great extent influenced by context, the site and the neighboring buildings.
In the case of the McDonough Museum of Art, the surrounding buildings were large scale elements and the space between was limited in size. It provoked the idea of fragmentation, creating a building that appeared to be sculptural objects in a garden setting rather than a small building set in between larger buildings. It utilized the principle of counterpoint.
Site specific references to other projects include the expansion of the Guggenheim Museum. In this case the idea was to form a backdrop, an anchor for the curved sculptural masterpiece previously created by Frank Lloyd Wright as well as to create flexible flat floor exhibition space in comparison to the sloped ramp exhibition space in the rotunda. Counterpoint used in a different way.
Another example highly influenced by the context would be the Henry Art Center at the University of Washington in Seattle. The form of the Museum is generated in response to its entrance which is from the elevated Campus level. The massing of building is downward toward the street grade which provides for views over it from the Campus level as well as views from the statue of George Washington which rises from the Campus level. The building was conceived as a foothill to the Campus.
Some projects are designed to extend the context, be harmonious in scale massing but unique in the details and responsive to programmatic requirements. An example of this is the recently completed 60 story Setai Hotel and Condominium Tower on 5th Avenue in New York City, which sits next to the Historical Landmarked 13-story mid-rise buildings. The building massing includes a base building element designed to sit comfortable next to the Landmark buildings, similar in height, sympathetic use of materials and fenestration. It is a contemporary reinterpretation of historical notation, not a copy. The Tower is set back from the base so as to mitigate its presence at the pedestrian level.
