Past Tense Past Tense Lasting Artistic Impressions of Portland State Presidents Cramer Millar Wolfe Blumel mages of the first four Portland State University presidents have been captured in three oil paintings and one sculpture. A portrait of John F. Cramer hangs in Cramer Hall in the third floor conference room. Cramer was the first Portland State College president (1955-1958), and State Hall, the second building on campus, was renamed Cramer Hall in 1969 in his honor. A portrait of Branford P. Millar, Portland State’s second president (1959-1968) is located on the first floor of the Branford Price Millar Library (built in 1969), named in his honor. Both of these portraits were painted by Florence Saltzman-Heidel (1917-1972), the wife of the first Art Department Chair, Fred Heidel. Saltzman-Heidel graduated from the Chicago Art Institute in the 1930s. She taught in California post-secondary institutions and occasionally at Portland State. She was an artist who did wood-cut print making and painted in several media, including gouache (opaque watercolor) and oil. She exhibited in several art shows over the years, with her last being a retrospective one-woman show in 1972 at the Portland Art Museum. Her works are in permanent collections in art museums in London, Paris, California, and Washington as well as in Oregon. The Florence Saltzman-Heidel scholarship was established for Art and Design students. A bronze sculpture (bust) of Gregory B. Wolfe, third president of Portland State (1968-1974), is located in the Market Center Building, 8th floor, President’s Suite. The sculpture was produced by Vera Prasilova Scott (18991996). Scott began her artistic training in photography at Charles University in Prague and continued her schooling at the Graphic Arts School in Munich. She pursued photography as a career in New York and Houston, becoming well known for her portraits. When she moved to Portland in 1937, she began her work in sculpture, which she successfully pursued into the 1980s. Her works have been exhibited in Portland, Eugene, Houston, and New York and are in the permanent collections of the Portland Museum of Art and the Museum of Czech Literature in Prague. Sally Haley (1908-2007), a well-known Northwest artist, painted a portrait of Joseph C. Blumel, the fourth President of Portland State (1974-1986). Joseph C. Blumel Hall (built in 1986) was named to honor him. Sally Haley earned a Bachelor’s of Fine Art degree at Yale University. Haley and her husband, Michele Russo, were active in the arts in Portland during the mid-20th century. She was known for her still life paintings and portraits. She held many solo and group exhibitions during her career as an artist throughout the 20th century. Note: Special thanks to Mary McVein, Visual Resources Curator, School of Art & Design, College of the Arts, Portland State University. --Mary Brannan I 3
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz