16 / AMAM.OBERLIN.EDU HIGHLIGHT / DONOR PROFILES LEGACY OF GIVING: DONORS ENHANCE THE ALLEN’S COLLECTION AND PROGRAMS The Allen’s public engagement thrives thanks to staff, students, faculty, volunteers, and community members. Alumni donors like Betty Beer Franklin (OC 1965), Carl R. Gerber (OC 1958), and Dominique H. Vasseur (OC 1973) have also greatly enhanced the museum’s collection and resources, contributing significant art and funds for the benefit of future generations. Betty Beer Franklin majored in art history at Oberlin and went on to a distinguished career as an attorney, settling in Brookings, South Dakota. Having fallen in love with prints at Oberlin through study with Professor Wolfgang Stechow, the internationally-known expert on Dutch, Flemish, and German art, she began collecting works on paper, even as she nurtured her own skills as an artist. Importantly, she determined to focus on works by women at a time when they were often less sought-after than those by men. Her substantial collection of such works—including by Dorothy Dehner, Angelica Kauffman, Käthe Kollwitz, Berthe Morisot, and Diana Ghisi Scultori—has been donated to the Allen over the past 21 years, with many having been incorporated in recent exhibitions. Her first contribution to the museum, in 2001, was funding to support the acquisition of a sculpture by Alison Saar, and she has also donated numerous prints and drawings by men, including Albrecht Dürer, Utagawa Hiroshige I, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Recognizing the importance to a museum of funding for more than acquisitions, Betty has also endowed a substantial fund to enable future museumpublications, including catalogues, which will ensure that the research and scholarship of the museum’s curators reach a broad audience. Carl R. Gerber, who has just retired as Chair of the museum’s Visiting Committee after more than 16 years in that role and 19 years on the Committee, majored in chemistry at Oberlin—but had the world of art opened to him through the modern art course taught by beloved faculty member Ellen Johnson. Going on to a successful career at the Environmental Protection Agency, Gerber began collecting works by such artists as Richard Diebenkorn, Sam Gilliam, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, and Robert Rauschenberg. Since his first gift in 1974 he has donated much of his collection to the museum, often giving works in honor or memory of close friends and relatives. Always wishing to support the curators’ interests, he has provided funding for many more acquisitions, including by Berenice Abbott, Barbara Kruger, Jeanne Mammen, and Hiroshi Yoshida. On the occasion of his 60th birthday he set up an endowed fund for acquisitions of contemporary art, which has contributed to the purchase of works by Derrick Adams, LaToya Ruby Frazier, and DavidWojnarowicz, among others. Over his decades of service he has funded numerous other projects and programs, including the donor screen near the museum’s courtyard entrance. Dominique H. Vasseur, who recently moved back to Oberlin, majored in art history at the College and went on to work in curatorial positions at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Dayton Art Institute, and the Columbus Museum of Art. He began collecting Japanese prints in the late 1970s (so as not to compete with the museums where he worked in his field of interest, European art), and he started in earnest to collect European prints and drawings following his 2015 retirement. Early European lithography and the prints of French artist Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret are particular interests. Coincidentally, the Allen has a major painting by Bergeret, acquired in 1982 after Dominique’s graduation and in the same year that he curated an exhibition on the artist at Dayton. Since 2019 he has donated to the museum significant works in these areas, as well as many Japanese prints and several contemporary works. Additionally, he has set up an endowed acquisition fund in his areas of interest in memory of his parents (his mother graduated fromOberlin in 1943), and through an estate gift will set up a second endowment for conservation and the acquisition of works by LGBTQ artists. The Allen is grateful to friends of the museum such as Betty, Carl, and Dominique—and to all of the museum’s hundreds of donors each year. Your contributions truly make the museum a community-focused, communitysupported resource for learning and engagement, and enable the cutting-edge exhibitions, programs, and projects that the staff undertakes on behalf of all. Betty Beer Franklin Carl R. Gerber Dominique H. Vasseur
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