Your Life

Thursday, Nov. 05, 2009

$6M gift makes gala night a great success

BILOXI — A $6 million donation to the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art that will fund construction of the fourth and largest of the Frank Gehry buildings at the new beachfront site was made public Friday night during the museum’s annual fundraising gala at the Beau Rivage.

The $6 million donation has been kept quiet and its source will not be revealed to the public, said Ohr executive director Denny Mecham.

Ohr board president Larry Clark told the approximately 350 attendees that the museum received the funding about 45 days ago and it will allow completion of the building by mid-2010.

“By the time this event occurs next year,” Clark said, “the Frank Gehry-designed museum will be operational.”

That building is the four-story Center for Ceramics located on the northwest corner of the site, where it has loomed in a wounded and incomplete state since Katrina. Construction on it was not in the plans, originally, for the site’s partial opening a year from now. Ceremonies have long been scheduled to open the three buildings on the east side of the campus on Nov. 5, 2010.

Now, with the Center for Ceramics included in that opening, only the central pods that will house the Ohr collection will remain to be finished.

A metal etching of the museum that reproduces Gehry’s initial drawing of the site was a popular bid item in the gala’s silent auction. The etching, which was valued at $500, ultimately went to Larry Clark for $525.

“The auction is much bigger this year than last year and the prices are good,” observed Ethel Clay of Biloxi.

Hosted by the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino in Biloxi, the gala’s theme was “Let Them Eat Cake” and included a Cake Pull for $3,000 worth of jewelry at $50 a chance. Individual ticket prices were $200 and the sold-out VIP tables went for $3,000 each.

All money raised by the gala, including tickets and auction sales, is retained by the museum for its operations.