Interview with Jordan D. Schnitzer

As we prepare to open Strange Weather: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, JSMA executive director John Weber spent some time learning about the history and motivation behind Jordan Schnitzer’s collecting.

John Weber: Who were your first art heroes? I know the first work of art you bought was by Louis Bunce. What about him and other artists you encountered when you were first starting out?

Jordan D. Schnitzer: In my opinion, in Portland, Oregon, the most important artists of 1950 to 2000 were Louis Bunce and Mike (Michele) Russo. Like artists in most communities, they taught to make a living and they were the two teachers at the Portland Art

Museum Art School (now called the Pacific Northwest College of Art), and they had a huge influence on my late mother, Arlene Schnitzer. They were also the first two bigger than life artists that I met as a young boy. Louis Bunce had spent time in Paris with Picasso, he had a savoir faire the way he dressed in a sport coat and scarves and always a cigarette flopping in his mouth as was customary for the time. He had a husky voice, a smile and twinkly eye—all the students loved taking classes and socializing with him. Mike Russo was introverted but a wonderful teacher. The Italian heritage was never far away from his voice and thoughts. His wife, Sally Haley, was an amazing portrait artist and did works of fruit, nuts, and chairs. These three artists were at the top of the heap in Portland during my formative art learning years!

These three, along with another artist named Carl Morris, convinced my mother to open a gallery. At the time, the Portland Art Museum had a rental sales gallery but in the early 1960s in Portland, Oregon, there were not any contemporary galleries. So, my mother Arlene, along with her mother, Helen Director, opened the Fountain Gallery of Art, so named because the cheapest space in town was in one of the oldest buildings left in Portland, the 1889 New Market Theatre building—the rent was $50 a month and it was kitty corner from the Skidmore Fountain which played a part in early Portland’s history and resulted in my mother choosing the name The Fountain Gallery of Art!

I also remember going over to Mike Russo’s house to play with his son and being so impressed with how their house was so different than mine. It was full of skulls and bowls and all sorts of materials that Mike Russo and Sally Haley often used in their art. Overall it was a very nourishing time for me and helped form my perspective, ideas, and love for contemporary art!

JW: How about today? Do you have any art heroes now? Whose shows are you most interested in seeing? Who takes your breath away?

JDS: I have so many art heroes, it is hard to pick just a few. My art heroes reflect the nature and shape of our collection which looks like a dumbbell (I hope that does not reflect upon me as the curator, but there may be those who say I am not as smart as I hope to be!)

This dumbbell is weighted at both ends. On the first end lies the greats of the post-World War II American era. Our collection is filled with Robert Rauschenberg, Ellsworth Kelly, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Jim Dine, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Motherwell, and so many more. They were all masters at chronicling the post-World War II time in America. To pick a favorite I think is like asking who your favorite child is, and the answer is, it depends upon the day! Each time I look at work by any of those artists and others of that time, it takes my breath away. Like the greatest artists of other centuries, these artists were as good as it gets!

I look at Frank Stella’s work for instance and I stand there thinking “Wow!” This creative genius that puts all these shapes, forms, and colors together in this amazing way that somehow all comes together in images that defy time and space. Ellsworth Kelly—there is not anything he did that I do not love. The way he eliminates all distraction with his abstract shapes or forms reminds me of praying in a place of worship. I am not sure there has ever been anyone as good a colorist as he was. Robert Rauschenberg, probably the most intellectual of all those post-World War II artists. Jasper Johns, the most erudite, and mystical. You look at his work and try to understand the parts and pieces of what he is creating on canvas and prints, and it’s like being a detective. It is so much fun!

And then, of course, Andy Warhol. As many times as I have had exhibitions and seen his work in my collection and in other museums, it is always as fresh to me as it was the first time I saw his art! We are lucky to have over 1,400 Warhol works in the collection.

We have virtually all of the series of Marilyn (Marilyn Monroe), Mao (Mao Zedong), Endangered Species and on and on. We have had Warhol works in over 50 museums in the 35 years we have been sponsoring exhibitions from our collection.

Like Ellsworth Kelly, Warhol was a master colorist, but no other artist of the post-World War II period has done as good of a job at forcing us to deal with themes that were not only challenging at the time but are just as relevant today.

I think it is interesting if we look back through the history of art, culture, dance, and music—there are times that individuals have come along who rise up above others and whose work is time immemorial. I do not know if it was the post-World War II era in America—whether it was something in the water or a cosmic confluence of a genetic predisposition to art—it was undoubtedly a time where there were amazing artists working in America who produced art that will stand the test of time.

Now the other end of the dumbbell lies the current artists, such as Hank Willis Thomas, Alison Saar, Leonardo Drew, Enrique Chagoya, locally— Lucinda Parker, Sherrie Wolf, to name a few. These artists both locally and nationally are doing incredible work. Their work has the same effect on me as the post-World War II older American artists. Their work is again chronicling issues of our time and forcing me and everyone else to deal with our society today and the challenges we face. Last year, I was talking to Michael Govan, the director at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art known as LACMA. He authored his thesis on prints, so of course he is a hero to me! I asked him about how Frank Stella will be thought of in twenty-five years. Michael said, “He’ll be a historical artist.” That made me think because Michael said that every year out of the thousands of artists that we see at the art fairs or at galleries and museums, there are maybe two that break out every year and become important artists of that year. He then said, every century there are probably two artists that rise above all the others. In my opinion, if we look back at the twentieth century, the most important artist of the first half would be Picasso and for the second half, Warhol. That does not mean that Mondrian, De Kooning and dozens of others are not extremely important and brilliant artists who I think will stand the test of time. It is just that if we prioritize who magically rises above others, it is the two that I have suggested.

JW: I totally agree. So that is the twentieth century. How about now?

JDS: Right now, my art heroes are Judy Chicago and mostly artists of color doing spectacular work including Hank Willis Thomas, Leonardo Drew, Kara Walker, Alison Saar, Mickalene Thomas, Dinh Q. Le, and Hung Liu (who recently passed). I am so proud to say that as far as I know, our exhibition program has had more exhibitions of artists of color than any other institution. Also, we have had many shows of women artists and currently have an exhibition of Asian artists travelling to five museums across the country. It is not only staggering but depressing to me to look back through history and find that women artists and artists of color were treated not only as second-class citizens, but as secondclass artists. What is so wonderful about this day and age is that the pendulum is finally swinging in a new direction. It is clear that so much of the best work being done today is by artists of color and women. It is their time to shine.

I have close relationships with some of these artists. Hank Willis Thomas is brilliant—I am amazed by his intellectual depth, creativity, and powerful messages. He is doing amazing work that receives a lot of criticism, which I do not think is a bad thing. That means his work is shaking people up. Like his monumental sculpture, The Embrace, commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King in Boston—it is an extraordinary piece! I have a big collection of his work and keep buying more. Then there is the ingenious Leonardo Drew based in Brooklyn and a close friend I have gotten to know over the last five years. I love all of his work. For me, the magic of his work lies in the shapes, forms, and materials he uses. His process is incredible. I could go on and on about my favorite artists, but lastly, I will mention the innovative and inspiring Alison Saar. We published a book on the large collection we have of her work to accompany the traveling exhibition. Alison is a pioneer, unapologetically tackling identity politics and historic and present-day issues. Her ability to navigate between print and sculpture is so unique.

JW: Changing gears just a bit, how do you decide what to add to the collection? Given all you see, however many shows a year. What influences you?

JDS: First of all, I don’t have a curator that tells me, “Jordan you should buy this.” Whether it’s a $5 item at a Saturday market, or an expensive piece from a gallery, my philosophy is as long as you buy what you like, then you will always feel good about it! There is no shortage of things I respond to, but I buy art either for the Foundation or for me personally. When I buy art for the Foundation, I am thinking about how the work fits within a teaching collection and how it will serve museum directors and curators like yourself. What response might this piece evoke? If I buy art that no museum wants to borrow, then it just sits in the warehouse and defeats its purpose for the Foundation.

Now, on the personal side I buy things that I want to live with. I do not tend to rotate pieces I have up because I get so attached to them. Unless a museum wants to borrow it for a show, I do not want to see it go away.

In essence, I buy what I like. I buy from galleries, all the major auction houses and print publishing houses. I have great relationships at so many of these wonderful entities.

JW: Do you talk to artists about other artists? Do artists ever say to you, “Hey, you should look at so and so’s work”?

JDS: A little bit. For instance, Hank Willis Thomas is close to the artist Christopher Myers, and I bought some of his work at Art Basel in Miami this year. I bought this incredible piece that creates a whole environment titled, Let the Mermaids Flirt with Me. You should show it. It is a 30-foot room with all this fabric on the outside and 6 backlit stained-glass pieces, light boxes showing historical figures, black water goddesses, deities, and over 100 candles all around. It is a very powerful piece and is now in a couple of museum shows.

JW: You are the biggest print collector in the country, and maybe ten years ago or so, people tended to think about you as a print collector, primarily. But I want to talk about the rest of the story. Were you always buying paintings and drawings, and sculpture as well? Or did you at some point make a purposeful shift, because something like the swimming pool piece or the central piece in Strange Weather by Leonardo Drew— those are as far away from prints on paper as one could get. And the commitment it took from you to get the Leonardo Drew piece is immense. So, can you tell us about that?

JDS: Looking back, when my mother was getting ready to open the Fountain Gallery of Art, I visited the space a week before it opened. The artists were there. They were sheet rocking some walls, painting and getting the floor all ready. There was a piece of furniture over on the side with all these little drawers. I was seven years old, and I remember going over to it and thinking, “This is odd. Those little drawers are not big enough for sweaters or socks. I wonder what it is?” And I opened it. Turns out it was a print drawer. I was looking down at this beautiful fuchsia work, and my mother came over and said, “You like that?” I responded, “Yes,” and she said, “Well, you can have it.” It was by Stanley Hayter, and it dawned on me years later that the first thing I actually ever got was a print!

Growing up, I loved paintings, sculpture, and all mediums, including prints. Since I had known her since I was young, I went to a local artist and professor at University of Oregon, Laverne Krause, and she did a tribute print, which I then sold for $500 apiece to raise money for a LaVerne Krause fund for the museum. I organized a number of tribute dinners to help raise money for the University of Oregon Art Museum, which as you know, was named for me 15 years ago.

After my mother closed the gallery and turned it over to the late Laura Russo, I came up from a board meeting at the Portland Art Museum. There was an exhibition of prints and multiples that was arranged by the late Gordon Gilkey; he was Dean of the Art Department at Oregon State (during World War II he was one of those “monuments men”) and I thought to myself, while I want to continue buying paintings and sculpture of Pacific Northwest artists, it might be fun to buy a few prints. I went down to the Augen Gallery owned by Bob Kochs and bought a small Frank Stella, small Hockney, and the small Jim Dine called Garrity Necklace, A Heart, a Skull, and Cross. As I was leaving, I saw a Frankenthaler and an Ellsworth Kelly and came back next week for those. So, after about seven to eight years of buying these prints, one of your predecessors, David Robertson—years ago the director at the University of Oregon Museum—asked if we could do an exhibition of prints, and I said, “Sure.” He came up and went through my binder that had 300 prints in it, and he picked 56 for an exhibition in 1995. I came down to the building a few months later and was impressed by the way the curator Larry Fong had arranged the 56 works. I thought, this is like walking into a room with friends, yet I have never met any of those artists. Then it got even better. When I saw some adults with their kids, and they were looking at various works, I got so excited by sharing the art. I thought, as much passion as I have for the art, it is even exceeded by sharing it. I realized, as I thought often before, that I was lucky that my mother, Arlene Schnitzer, opened the art door for me!

But for many people on that University of Oregon campus, they still felt that building over there was for some elitist few, for somebody else, and that mirrors society. While we all look at going to museums as a treasured event, most people are pretty intimidated.

I thought, what if I could develop a significant private collection of art and make it available for free to loan to university and regional museums? The reason I picked prints and multiples was because, not having an art history degree myself, I Iearn the most from retrospectives and thematic shows of artists. The second part of the equation was the ability to acquire a lot of work by an artist—it is much more affordable to do it through prints and multiples than through other mediums.

I never could have afforded, even when I started (when prices were far lower), buying 20 or 30 or 40 Lichtenstein paintings. In 1998 when I started the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, I could have probably bought a Warhol painting for $500,000, a Frank Stella painting for $250,000, or a Lichtenstein. Let’s say, we started off with $16 million to spend on art in 1998. Let’s say I bought sixteen one-million-dollar paintings. Well, that collection would probably be worth a billion dollars today. In which case I would be sitting here saying look at me, I’ve got sixteen pieces by Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, or Warhol, or whatever. Whereas what I have now is sheer joy from sharing the collection I have!

It brings me immense joy knowing that we have had 180 exhibitions at 120 museums, that we have work by some of the most important artists of our time and that we share it by serving communities across the country. The sense of stewardship and personal legacy of giving back and trying to make a difference in my own way—it is a difficult feeling to describe!

JW: That makes perfect sense. And that also answers the question of why you collect in such depth—because it has such teaching value. Holding multiple works by the artists you collect helps you contextualize and helps you understand what the artist is doing. Whereas one or two pieces never does--it just does not get you there.

JDS: Our collection allows you and other museum directors and curators to produce any theme you can think of: East Coast/West Coast; male/ female; Latino or Hispanic art of the last 30 years; artists of color, the way our population is increasing and so on.

I remember Margaret Mondavi (who helped found Mondavi Winery with her husband Robert) called up and wanted to do an exhibition from our collection of artists who taught at UC Davis. Well, I had thought a lot before about those artists individually, and how they all were at UC Davis, but I never thought about them all collectively. We have William Wiley, John Buck, Bruce Nauman, Roy De Forest, Robert Arneson, Squeak Carnwath, and Wayne Thiebaud. There were a dozen major artists who all taught or attended art school there. When we had that show, I saw things that you might have thought about, but I never had. What dawned on me then, is the power of the collection that has still not been utilized nearly as much as it should be, to create these thematic shows. There is so much yet to be exhibited with themes yet to be discovered, that we certainly have the capability of doing. world, called me up 15 years ago and said, “Jordan, we’d like to have a lecture series for the print art fair, would you fund it?” I said, “Absolutely.” There were talks by Kiki Smith, Mel Bochner, and many others. Then about seven or eight years ago, Dick called up again and said, “You ever heard of this artist named Leonardo Drew?” I said, “Nope.” He said, “Jordan, you will love his work.” They had published some of his work, and they sent it to me, and I loved it. So, I show up a few months later in New York, and Leonardo Drew was there, and I meet him, and he gives his talk, and I was transfixed by his personality, sense of humor, his smile, and I loved his work.

For me, my exhibition program is all about the art and the audience. I have no sense of ownership of the 21,000 pieces we have in the collection. I do not know where I would go internally to have a sense of ownership—things do not register for me that way. The only objects I feel different about materially are the ring my mother got me when I was 13 that I have worn ever since, and the Breitling watch I got when I was 40 from my father! Whether it is the buildings we own in the company, or the art we own, I see myself more as a steward.

The next thing I know, he said, “Come on over to the studio in Brooklyn.” I went over, loved it, and then the next year I came out with my two young sons. He grabs my little boys and puts them on the floor. There was wood and stuff all over the place. He gives them hammers, and they start banging away on stuff and having fun, and then he has a little lift in his studio, and they go up and down on the lift—it was a magical experience.

On one of those visits about three years ago, I see this fabulous big piece on the wall (Number 215b, the centerpiece of Strange Weather), with all sorts of pieces all over the place, and I said, “I want it!” Okay, now, little did I know it would take maybe 40 crates and an entire truck to move it, and that Catherine Malone, my collection manager who has been with me 26 years, would give me a schoolmarm scolding: “Jordan, do you see how much space this piece takes to store?” Not to mention the cost of shipping, my gosh! So yes, I have learned a bit in my enthusiasm to also think about the storage.

The first time I actually saw it was in the exhibition at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Strange Weather. I remember I got there a few hours early for the opening. I went in, and I looked at it, and Leonardo was there too. On the side of it were a couple hundred more little pieces, and on the floor were about 400 or 500 more pieces. And I said, “Oh, my god! I got all that other stuff for free!” Because when I saw this work on the wall, it did not have all those other little pieces! He laughed.

JW: Let's talk about the Leonardo Drew piece that you decided to steward. In terms of scale, it was a big jump up, even from those giant prints that you have, like the Mel Bochner works. Those are huge prints, but the Leonardo Drew is literally a whole truckload of art! Did it just knock you out so much you said, “I have to have this”? You cannot put it up in your house, it’s too big! So, what happened?

JDS: First the history with Leonardo Drew. The International Fine Print Dealers Association Exhibition in New York is the main art show I go to. Dick Solomon from Pace Prints, who is a legend in the New York

It is an absolute tour-de-force. Due to its size and because of its wonderful complexity, the randomness, and the planned part. I think everyone who looks at it will be as taken with it as I was the first time I saw it in his studio.

JW: We are going to put it in a section of the gallery all by itself, and we’re going to have it on three walls. You are going to be essentially inside it and it’s going to be fabulous.

JDS: A number of the major artists I am collecting now are very strong, thematic artists of color. Leonardo happens to be an artist of color, but I do not see his work in the same thematic way—it does not present topically.

JW: It presents abstractly. But there may be topical things going on in it that he is thinking about. In my experience, a lot of abstract artists might be thinking about something that’s not explicitly named in the work, sometimes it’s psychological, sometimes it’s family, and it could be political as well, but it’s not readily visible in the work. It’s there for them, but it’s not there for us.

JDS: Right, and that is how I see his work—creative genius, that interaction between the organic and inorganic, that tension between those two. It is a wonderful counterpoint to the power of Alison Saar’s work, like the piece in Strange Weather entitled Grow’d, 2019, that is an amazing sculpture.

JW: Do you have something that you would see as a kind of philosophy of collecting?

JDS: When I give these art talks, I always say to the audience something like, “You are all artists, aren’t you? You took art in grade school or high school. I know that most of you, when you’re in a restaurant where there’s paper and crayons on the table, you’re all playing with it. But to be in University of Oregon’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, something has to happen. First, you’ve got to be someone that has a genetic predisposition to an aesthetic. Then secondly, you have to be possessed with the desire to rip open your guts and have some message you want to visually portray. You have to get that out to the world and be ready to take criticism. Third, you have to do it in a different way.”

So, in terms of the artists in my collection, they are all people that met those tests. Leonardo Drew, Anish Kapoor, Damien Hirst, Marie Watt, Dihn Q. Le, Roger Shimomura, Lichtenstein, Nevelson, or Louise Bourgeois—you look at any of these artists work and you will know who created it because their brand is so uniquely their own.

JW: Knowing yourself as you do, is there a question that you would want to ask yourself that nobody else would think to ask you?

JDS: I am fascinated about how we as human beings experience art. I have been a student of art museums since I was young. I remember going to the Louisiana Museum outside Copenhagen when I was thirteen and being struck by the way they used windows, light, and grass. It was situated in harmony with the nature around it. I have always hoped to explore—probably in the museum that we actually operate ourselves someday—the issue of how to optimize the viewer’s experience with art.

It’s like when you go to Europe or something, and you want to see everything because there’s so much to see, and by the early afternoon jet lag hits you, fatigue, and you are just worn out.

I wonder if seeing a whole lot of art in a building is really the right way to experience that art? I do not have the answers, and I am not saying it isn’t. I love our exhibitions. I love the exhibitions you have done. But in terms of asking a question—and not that there is only one answer— but what is the best way for any of us to experience art?

Eventually (hopefully soon), I will have my own exhibition space, and I can try some different things. For instance, I have always wondered if you had a big room, like your space upstairs, and we put up two Ellsworth Kelly works, one on each end, and nothing else, would that be better than putting up 60 or 80 more Ellsworth Kelly pieces on the walls in between and on some portable walls? I do not know, but I find the question to be deliciously challenging!

JW: That is truly fascinating, and I look forward to seeing you make it happen. Is there an upcoming exhibition you are really excited about?

JDS: Yes. We are lending 70 Warhols to the Hugh Lane Art Gallery in Dublin, Ireland. I have never been there, and I am excited to go.

Next, one of the most important exhibitions I have ever loaned art to will be the Judy Chicago retrospective at the New Museum in New York that opens this Fall.

I think there is no female artist over the last 50 years that is as important as Judy Chicago! She has not just pushed the glass ceiling for women artists but blown it open! Her six decades of tackling social justice issues is unparalleled. She embodies everything I expect an artist to do— challenge us, frustrate us, bring us joy, and most importantly, forever change us!

JW: Thank you, Jordan, for everything you do for art, for the JSMA, and for the University of Oregon.