Million Dollar Donation for the Audain Art Museum

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - July 29, 2015) - Norman Cressey, Chairman of Cressey Development Corp - a long time Whistler developer - has made a $1 million donation to the endowment fund that will support the Audain Art Museum. Cressey built a vacation home in Whistler in 1988 and subsequently developed a series of other projects there, including the Westin Resort & Spa.

In recognition of this significant gift, which brings the endowment up to $7.5 million, museum chairman Michael Audain says that the reception area in the building will be called the Cressey Reception Hall.

"Our friends in the development and art communities have been extraordinarily generous," Audain adds. "They realize that art museums are unable to operate on ticket sales alone."

Delayed Opening

Audain also announces that while he hoped the museum would open its doors to the public before Christmas, the date has moved and the opening will now occur in late January 2016.

"The construction program has gone very well, however, before the art moves in we need to allow sufficient time for commissioning the temperature and humidity control systems, to ensure that we conform to Class A museum standards," Audain explains.

Background:

The Audain Art Museum site is located on Blackcomb Way adjacent to Whistler Village. The building is being constructed at a cost of $35 million with sophisticated environmental and security systems, which will allow it to accommodate exhibitions from the National Gallery of Canada and other major art museums.

Designed by Patkau Architects, the 56,000 square foot building will be Canada's newest Class A art museum and one of Western Canada's largest.

The museum will house a large portion of the personal art collection that Michael Audain and his wife Yoshiko Karasawa have amassed over the past 40 years. Their world-class Northwest Coast art collection will be on permanent display, plus galleries for temporary exhibitions of Canadian and international art. Open year round, the museum will be an attraction for Whistler's 10,000 residents and the 2.7 million annual visitors to the four-season resort.