$3 million and 9,200-square-foot KSU museum expansion gets the OK

Kennesaw State University’s art program keeps growing. Atlanta dance darling Lauri Stallings is an artist-in-residence] for its dance program. Last July, artist/professor Teresa Bramlette Reeves was named director and chief curator of its art museum and galleries. Now KSU — the third largest university in Georgia — has announced a $3 million expansion to its art museum to be completed by March 2013.

Local architecture firm Stanley Beaman & Sears will be designing the 9,200-square-foot addition to the building, originally built in 2007, which will include more exhibition space in addition to a center for interdisciplinary research. KSU’s permanent collection has grown to include more than 1,000 works since a gift of five prints from local collectors Fred D. Bentley Sr. and J. Allan Sellars 40 years ago. It holds pieces by Marc Chagall, Norman Rockwell, Howard Finster, Pierre-August Renoir, Lamar Dodd, and more.

Funding for the phase II expansion began with a $2 million pledge from retired carpet industry executive Bernard Zuckerman that required the university to raise an additional $1 million. One hundred sculptures by Zuckerman’s late wife Ruth will be displayed in a new wing, the all-glass “Ruth V. Zuckerman Pavilion.”

A yet to be determined exhibit will celebrate the expansion’s grand opening next spring.