The story of PNCA is in many ways the story of Portland: a city relentless in its pursuit of innovation and cultivation of the artist’s voice. The College, now in its 100th year, continues to embody these qualities, which are vital pieces of our rich history, bustling present, and evolving future.

Ambitious Beginnings
PNCA’s origin can be traced to 1891, when a cadre of Portland artists channeled their city’s pioneering spirit into a weekly artistic pursuit of the paper-and-charcoal variety. Artist Harry Wentz, architects Albert E. Doyle, Joseph Jacobberger and John B. Reid along with Seth Catlin, an architecture student; and merchant grocer Fred Weber, formed a modest sketch club and, further cementing their forward-thinking ways, allowed a handful of women to join. Among them was young Anna Belle Crocker, an art student and secretary to well-known banker William Ladd ; an unrepentant dreamer whose energy and commitment would make the Museum Art School’s founding a reality.

In 1909, the School of the Portland Art Association would open its doors as the first museum art school on the West Coast.
One year later, the club inspired the creation of the Portland Art Association by local merchants and businessmen, including W.H. Corbett who, two years later, famously purchased giant Greek and Roman casts and installed them (temporarily) in the old Portland Library on Southwest Stark Street; ideal subjects for the sketch club, which descended upon the gallery to capture the behemoth figures.

The year 1905 was a benchmark for the Portland Art Association as it saw the donation of $30,000 by William Ladd’s arts-enthusiast mother, Abigail, and Mr. Corbett’s offering of property at Southwest Fifth Avenue and Taylor Street as the Museum’s first official site. Four years later, the School of the Portland Art Association would open its doors as the first museum art school on the West Coast.

This ambitious endeavor was largely the brainchild of Anna Belle Crocker, who was soon appointed Curator and Principal of the Museum Art School; a role she would play until her retirement in 1936.

In 1914, the Museum Art School awarded its first three-year-study certificates and within the next years, enrollment reached 127 students. In keeping with demand, tuition, which had been lingering around $40 per class/per term, jumped to $50.

Concurrent with growth among the student body was a movement within the board of trustees to acquire space for a new Museum and Art School, an endeavor that became official in 1930 when the trustees negotiated the purchase of a South Park blocks parcel in exchange for the Southwest Fifth Avenue and Taylor Street property.

Coming of Age
Thanks to the G.I. Bill®, the end of World War II saw a renewed vigor in arts education, a trend that played out loudly for the Museum Art School. New York artist and former student Louis Bunce returned to his alma mater in 1946 to teach Abstract Expressionism and his students, such as acclaimed printer, portraitist, and future Museum Art School instructor George Johanson, say Bunce was a force of nature. “[For him] Art was very serious,” Johanson told the Oregonian in 2007. “Bunce made you see that and that’s what made him a great teacher.” One year later, the school enjoyed the arrival of another of its great teaching mentors (and affable rabble-rousers), Michele “Mike” Russo of Yale University’s Graduate School of Art. With his artist-wife Sally Haley in tow, Russo ushered in a new era for the school with an unabashed commitment to experimentation and a contagious zeal for provocation: his Cubist-inspired nudes still grace countless Portland walls today.

A crucial milestone of President Sally Lawrence’s tenure was the separation of the College from the Museum in 1994.
The Museum Art School thrived in the coming decades. It received accreditation and membership from the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges in 1961 and, in 1968, added a Liberal Arts studies curriculum to its roster (the class of 1969 was the first to receive the BFA degree). The 1970’s saw further expansion into the L. Hawley Hoffman Wing ; designed by Portland architect Pietro Belluschi ; and constant flux at the College’s helm until 1982, when renowned Portland arts supporter and educator Sally Lawrence was appointed Director of the School ; by then renamed the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Lawrence was ultimately appointed President, a post she held until her retirement in 2003.
A crucial milestone of Lawrence’s tenure was the separation of the College from the Museum in 1994 (the Oregonian compared the event to “a sprout moving from the greenhouse into the open air”). The evolution of this 84-year relationship afforded the College financial independence and administrative freedom from the Museum, and completing this rite of passage, moved the College to the Goodman Building in 1998, its current 92,000-square-foot campus headquarters at 1241 NW Johnson Street in the Pearl District.

The Future is Present
Dr. Thomas Manley, formerly of Pitzer College, was appointed PNCA President in 2003 after Lawrence’s long tenure. Manley has guided PNCA through what may well be its most auspicious era yet. In 2007, the College received a donation of $15 million from longtime local arts supporter Hallie Ford (the largest gift to an arts organization in Oregon’s history) and the following fall the MFA in Visual Studies program was launched, the College’s first.
In 2007, the College received a donation of $15 million from longtime local arts supporter Hallie Ford, the largest gift to an arts organization in Oregon’s history.

In 2008, the College acquired the 1916-era former U.S. Post Office building at 511 N. Broadway in the North Park blocks as a gift from the U.S. Department of Education. The building will double the College’s space (target move-in date is 2014) and may serve as a hub for what President Manley envisions as Portland’s potential next “new arts district.”
As PNCA prepares for this brick-and-mortar expansion, its educational and public programs continue to grow. In late 2008, the College announced the creation of a joint MFA in Applied Craft and Design with the Oregon College of Art and Craft (OCAC), with its first class of 15 students starting in Fall 2009. The College is also in ongoing discussions with community leaders about the integration with the Museum of Contemporary Craft, a partnership that would cement PNCA’s position as Portland’s most well-rounded, diverse, and — at 100 years-old — most established arts institution.

by Stacey Wilson