The Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore was given a $1 million gift to establish a chair in painting, a position that will bring visiting faculty to the school for long-term residencies and recognizes the accomplishments of the current staff.
Donating the money was Genevieve McMillan, a friend of the college and resident of Cambridge, Mass. The official name of the position she has created with her donation will be The Genevieve McMillan/Reba Stewart Chair in Painting.
Reba Stewart was an instructor at MICA from 1963 to 1971 and traveledto Africa on a sabbatical during that time. There, Stewart contracted malaria and died in 1971.
This is not the first gift that McMillan has established in the name of Stewart. In 1980, she established the Reba Stewart Memorial Scholarship. In the Northeast, McMillan has created other endowments in Stewart?s memory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University?s W.E.B. Institute for African-American Research.
Several of Stewart?s paintings are in the collections of Boston-area museums.
? Dave Carey
