After meeting his wife at SU, alumnus gives donation to SU Art Museum
Courtesy of Syracuse University Art Museum
Through the Luise and Morton Kaish Gallery Endowed Fund, Morton Kaish and his daughter Melissa will donate artwork to the SU Art Museum and establish a fellows program.
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After meeting at Syracuse University in the ‘40s as art students, married couple Morton and Luise Kaish had their artwork showcased in institutions such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the British Museum. But their shared love for education never left them.
Luise died in 2013, but Morton and the couple’s daughter Melissa are giving back to SU and its art museum through the Luise and Morton Kaish Gallery Endowed Fund. A named gallery will feature the couples’ artwork, and SU will also establish a fellows program, the university announced Thursday in a news release.
“We are so grateful to Morton and Melissa for their deeply meaningful gift,” said Vanja Malloy, the SU Art Museum director and chief curator, in the release. “The endowment will provide current and future students the opportunity to undertake original research and experience firsthand the power of art to act as a catalyst that transcends all the usual disciplines and boundaries.”
When Morton returned to SU after serving in World War II, he saw that faculty were more interested in design, color and imagination rather than the “discipline nature of composition or cast-drawing” that initially brought him to SU, Morton said in the release. Morton later taught his own students when he was a professor at the School of Art and Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Luise was a renowned sculptor who had work featured in major museums such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Morton’s late wife had tremendous confidence, he said in the release. This was, in part, because of her role as a female sculptor in a primarily male field.
Despite the fund being a legacy of the Kaish family, a reminder of Luise has been near Carnegie Library for over five decades. The 1951 senior class sponsored a statue of SU’s then-mascot, the Saltine Warrior. Students vied to have their design picked, and Luise’s statue was eventually chosen. Her work still sits on the Quad today.
Published on March 18, 2021 at 8:51 pm
Contact Christopher: cscargla@syr.edu | @chrisscargs
