The Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro is excited to announce the establishment of the Sherrill/Gingrow Docent Education Endowment Fund, the first of its kind to provide transformational opportunities for docent education and gallery instruction programs at the Museum.

Volunteer Weatherspoon docent Sydney Sherrill Gingrow and her sister Sharon L. Sherrill established the endowment in memory of their parents, Clark A. and Norma D. Sherrill, who championed both art and education. Despite neither having college degrees themselves, Clark and Norma Sherrill celebrated their daughters’ college degrees and subsequent careers in higher education.

Clark was a WWII Naval veteran with a later career in public works, emphasizing recycling and waste management. He also held patents on several inventions, one being the first front-ended leaf loader. His wife, Norma, was a homemaker, consummate bookkeeper, and accomplished bridge player. In his seventies, Clark became a self-taught artist, creating thousands of sculpted and carved assemblages, both representational and abstract. His love of art influenced his granddaughter, Alex (B.A. Guilford College, M.F.A. SCAD), who is an accomplished artist herself. As Clark and Norma became more financially able, they established a charitable foundation and entrusted their daughters Sherry (B.A. Guilford College, M.A. Wake Forest University, Ed.D. UNCG) and Sydney (B.A. and M.S. University of Tennessee) with identifying institutions that reflected the Sherrills’ shared vision of justice, equality, and diversity through arts and education.

The Sherrill/Gingrow Docent Education Endowment Fund will be used to enhance volunteer docent education and gallery instruction programs at the Weatherspoon Art Museum. The Weatherspoon’s Docent Education program began in the early 1960s and continues to play an invaluable role by introducing youth and adults to modern and contemporary art. Currently, the program’s twenty-five volunteers engage with more than 5,000 visitors annually through guided tours and visual literacy classes, while also serving a growing number of K-12 and college students, families, and adults with special needs.

Curator of Education Curator Ann Grimaldi says, “The Weatherspoon Docent program has a long history of meaningful engagement with visitors in ways that are not always visible to the general public. This endowment will help us provide continuing education opportunities and teaching resources to support and grow this essential volunteer endeavor. Our docents love art and more so love sharing it with new people each day.”

Contributions to the Sherrill/Gingrow Docent Education Endowment Fund are welcome. For further information, please contact Sarah Kathryn Coley, Director of Development, UNC Greensboro at skcoley@uncg.edu, (336) 256-0495, or visit alumni.uncg.edu/docented.

About the Weatherspoon Art Museum

Mission
The Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro acquires, preserves, exhibits, and interprets modern and contemporary art for the benefit of its multiple audiences, including university, community, regional, and beyond. Through these activities, the museum recognizes its paramount role of public service, and enriches the lives of diverse individuals by fostering an informed appreciation and understanding of the visual arts and their relationship to the world in which we live.

History
The Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro was founded by Gregory Ivy in 1941 and is the earliest of any art facilities within the UNC system. The museum was founded as a resource for the campus, community, and region and its early leadership developed an emphasis—maintained to this day—on presenting and acquiring modern and contemporary works of art. A 1950 bequest from the renowned collection of Claribel and Etta Cone, which included prints and bronzes by Henri Matisse and other works on paper by American and European modernists, helped to establish the Weatherspoon’s permanent collection. Other prescient acquisitions during Ivy’s tenure included a 1951 suspended mobile by Alexander Calder, Woman by Willem de Kooning, a pivotal work in the artist’s career that was purchased in 1954, and the first drawings by Eva Hesse and Robert Smithson to enter a museum collection.

In 1989, the museum moved into its present location in The Anne and Benjamin Cone Building designed by the architectural firm Mitchell/Giurgola. The museum has six galleries and a sculpture courtyard with over 17,000 square feet of exhibition space. The American Association of Museums accredited the Weatherspoon in 1995 and renewed its accreditation in 2005.

Collections + Exhibitions
The permanent collection of the Weatherspoon Art Museum is considered to be one of the foremost of its kind in the Southeast. It represents all major art movements from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Of the nearly 7,000 works in the collection are pieces by such prominent figures as Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Cindy Sherman, Al Held, Alex Katz, Henry Tanner, Louise Nevelson, Mark di Suvero, Deborah Butterfield, and Robert Rauschenberg. The museum regularly lends to major exhibitions nationally and internationally.

The Weatherspoon also is known for its adventurous and innovative exhibition program. Through a dynamic annual calendar of fifteen to eighteen exhibitions and a multi-disciplinary educational program for audiences of all ages, the museum provides an opportunity for audiences to consider artistic, cultural, and social issues of our time and enriches the life of our university, community, and region.

UNC Greensboro
UNC Greensboro, located in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina, is 1 of only 50 doctoral institutions recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for both higher research activity and community engagement. Founded in 1891 and one of the original three UNC system institutions, UNC Greensboro is one of the most diverse universities in the state with 20,000+ students, and 2,700+ faculty and staff members representing 90+ nationalities. With 17 Division I athletic teams, 85 undergraduate degrees in over 125 areas of study, as well as 74 master’s and 32 doctoral programs, UNC Greensboro is consistently recognized nationally among the top universities for academic excellence and value, with noted strengths in health and wellness, visual and performing arts, nursing, education, and more. For additional information, please visit uncg.edu and follow UNCG on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.


Weatherspoon Art Museum
UNC Greensboro
Spring Garden and Tate Streets, PO Box 26170
Greensboro, NC 27402-6170, (336) 334-5770, weatherspoon@uncg.edu

For more information or press images, contact:
Loring Mortensen, (336) 256-1451, lamorten@uncg.edu