Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art receives $300,000 gift

NEW PALTZ — The State University of New York at New Paltz has received a $300,000 gift from Mrs. Sara Bedrick, the fifth largest donation in the college’s history, to benefit the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, Interim President Steven Poskanzer announced Sept. 5.

It is a lead gift in the campus’s campaign to raise $2.5 million in endowment funds for the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art. Interim President Poskanzer had recently named raising endowment funds for the Dorsky Museum an institutional priority.

“I am enormously excited and deeply touched by Sara Bedrick’s generosity and deep commitment to the success of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art and to New Paltz,” said Poskanzer. “This leadership gift will significantly bolster the quality of exhibits and programming of the Dorsky Museum and will jump start our efforts to raise a robust endowment for the Dorsky Museum.”

New Paltz will name a gallery in the east wing of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in honor of Mrs. Bedrick, the second of Samuel Dorsky’s four children. The Sara Bedrick Project Room is used for important exhibitions from the museum’s photography and metals collection, and for temporary displays that feature cutting-edge contemporary installations and exhibition projects. Funds earned from the endowment will be used to fund these projects and other important exhibitions and interpretive programs.

When Mrs. Bedrick, who lives in Malverne, N.Y., attended the museum opening last October with her husband, Joseph, and three sons, Michael, Jason, and Gary, she was moved by the beauty and spaciousness of the facility and by the tribute it represented to her father’s memory. “I’m pleased that I could make this gift in honor of him,” she said, adding that she hoped that her support would “be good for the school and for the museum.”

“The generous donation by Sara Bedrick dramatically expands the public/private partnership that was instrumental in making the Dorsky Museum a reality,” said Neil Trager, the museum’s director. “The new resources generated by the gift will enable us to sustain the high-quality programming of our inaugural year, and it will enable us to embark upon new projects and initiatives that will enhance and expand our service to the campus and the community. I am personally grateful to Sara Bedrick for her generous and enthusiastic support.”