A Controversial Bequest At The Tacoma Art Museum
Thanks to the generosity of German grocery entrepreneur Erivan Haub, the Tacoma Art Museum has added a new wing to its 2003 building, which will display some 300 works of art. However, it is a gift with strings attached: The Haub Family Galleries were built to show off a collection of Old West-themed paintings and sculpture that many visitors will be disposed to view as brash or even self-congratulatory, romantic tokens that disguise an actual history of colonialism, genocide, and land theft.
Last summer when the Tulalip-Swinomish photographer Matika Wilbur’s tribal portraits were on display, it was like an inoculation against the Haub bequest and wing (which was nearing completion). But Wilbur’s portraits have left the building, and “Suddenly we’re back in the mythic 19th century, mostly: wagon trains and lonesome cowpokes; melancholy braves arrayed on colorful horizons; no sign of the telegraph or railroad; ancient arid landscapes untouched by the plow.”
See Brian Miller, Tacoma Art Museum Opens a New Wing for a Problematic Gift, Seattle Weekly News, Dec. 2, 2014.