Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art to reopen amid fanfare

The 20-month wait is over.

The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art tonight will dedicate its Mary and Howard Lester Wing and re-open to the public on Friday. The museum had been closed since May 2003 for the 34,000-square-foot wing's construction.

The Lester wing provides new galleries, an auditorium and classroom space and is housing the Weitzenhoffer Collection of French Impressionism, the single most important gift of art ever given to an American public university.

"It's a magical place and I think others will think the same thing when they walk through the buidling," said Eric Lee, director and chief curator of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art. " Everyone who's walked through it has said it was spectacular."

Festivities will begin tonight at the Molly Shi Boren Ballroom inside the Oklahoma Memorial Union with a reception and dinner for museum supporters and President's Associates. A reception will begin at 6 p.m., followed by dinner and a keynote address by Phillippe de Montebello, director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Tours of the new wing will follow.

On Friday, the museum will open to the public at 10 a.m. with free admission. Vincent Scully, Sterling Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at Yale University, will speak twice at the union - at a noon luncheon at the ballroom and again at 12:45 p.m. in Meacham Auditorium. Reservations are still available for the luncheon.

Hugh Newell Jacobsen, the famous architect who designed the Lester wing and called it "the best thing I'll ever do in my life," will deliver a public lecture 2:30 p.m. at Meacham Auditorium. The film "My Architect" will follow Jacobsen's address.

Howard Lester is an OU graduate who founded and is chairman of the board of the San Francisco-based company Williams-Sonoma Inc. The Weitzenhoffer collection, donated in 2000 at the bequest of Clara Weitzenhoffer, includes works by Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Pissarro, Vuillard and other world-famous artists.

Admission to the museum will be free through Sunday. Starting Monday, admission will be $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and children 6 to 17, and free to museum associates and OU students.

"I'm feeling just great about the building and I am so thankful to President and Mrs. Boren and the museum's many donors who made it possible," Lee said. "It would not have happened without President and Mrs. Boren's vision for the arts."

For more information on this week's museum dedication and re-opening events, call the Office of Special Events at 325-3784.

James S. Tyree366-3539jtyree@normantranscript.com