Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa Announces Naming Gift for Arts Center
Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa Announces Naming Gift for Arts Center
The Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa has broken ground on the Hardesty Arts Center, which is named in recognition of a recent $2.65 million gift from the Hardesty Family Foundation.
Formerly known as the Visual Arts Center project, the $18.3 million facility will include multi-use exhibition areas, studio spaces for artists, classrooms, offices, and a catering kitchen and is scheduled to open in the fall of 2012. The center will enable the council to augment current programs such as the Harwelden Institute, Artists in the Schools, and Community Arts Partnerships as well as revive Summer Arts and other programs. The council also will develop new programs with local artists and expand partnerships with other arts organizations through a visiting artists program.
To date, the project has received more than $13 million in pledges, including gifts from the J.E. and L.E. Mabee, George Kaiser Family, Raymond and Bessie Kravis, Mary K. Chapman, Hille, and Anne and Henry Zarrow foundations, as well as the City of Tulsa.
"We are so grateful to Roger and Donna Hardesty and the Hardesty Family Foundation for this extremely generous gift," said AHCT executive director and CEO Ken Busby. "They join our other lead donors in having the foresight to recognize the great potential this new facility has not just to elevate, but to celebrate, the arts in downtown Tulsa."
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