NEW YORKER MAKES ART, CASH DONATIONS TO UNIVERSITY MUSEUM; GEORGE SCHRIEVER AND HIS LATE WIFE, PLACIDE, WERE BORN IN MISSOURI

"Carbonado I," by St. Louis artist Seitu James Smith, was purchased by Schreiver last summer at an art fair in St. Louis.

This watercolor of New York's Union Square on a rainy day was painted by New York artist Violet Baxter.

With his latest donation of four paintings and three pieces of Biedermier furniture, a New Yorker who spent his career in the arts has become the University Museum's "most significant living patron," according to Director Dr. Jenny Strayer.

George Schriever also donated $30,000 for the museum to use for long-term growth.

Now retired, Schriever formerly worked for the prestigious Kennedy Art Galleries in New York City. Afterward, he was the curator of the Anschutz Collection in Denver, Colo., the world's largest collection of art from the American West.

While in Denver he purchased art from the Santa Fe and Taos schools in an era before they became popular.

The relationship with Southeast Has grown over the years.

Schriever and his late wife, Placide, were both born in St. Louis. Her father, George H. Daues, attended Southeast when it was still a teachers college. Some years back, they established a scholarship in his name and began attending Elderhostels at Southeast.

They met then-University Museum Director James Parker, and Schriever said he particularly grew to love to hear lectures by Dr. Frank Nickell, director of the Center for Regional History.

"Every time I'd hear Frank lecture about the Mississippi I'd think he can't know more about it. But he does."

In 1997, Schriever donated a bronze sculpture, a print, a mask from Gabon and a landscape by a Missouri artist in addition to a $75,000 cash contribution.

"We figured they had done a lot for Placide's father," he said. "It was fair to do something for them."

The newest pieces include a small, circa 1850 pastel portrait of Christian Heinrich Meyer, believed to have been a Lutheran seminary director.

A second work titled "Carbonado I" is a contemporary acrylic painting by St. Louisan Seitu James Smith. Schriever bought the piece last summer at a St. Louis art fair.

The two pieces together are valued at $2,350.

He also donated two pastels of Union Square by New York artist Violet Baxter.

Schriever said the monetary value of the donations is not important to him. "It has to be something I think has art value."