Ball State University Museum of Art to host lecture delivered by benefactor David Owsley

Topic: College of Fine Arts

October 11, 2007

David Owsley, a longtime benefactor of the Ball State University Museum of Art, will present the 19th annual Edmund F. Petty Memorial Lecture at 5 p.m. Oct. 22 at the museum.

Owsley, the son of Alvin M. Owsley and Lucy Ball Owsley and the grandson of Frank C. Ball, returns to Ball State for the first time since 2005, when he was awarded an honorary doctorate. His talk, titled "A Passion for Art: Confessions of a Collector," will discuss works of art he had a direct hand in acquiring for the museum.

"The museum is in an enviable position in that we ostensibly have an agent in New York," museum director Peter Blume said. "He is our eyes and ears in the city."
Since 1963, Owsley has donated more than 1,400 works of art to the museum, representing America, Europe, Africa, China, India, Japan, southeast Asia and the Pacific islands. Recently, he gave an important painting by American abstract expressionist Lee Krasner.

Ball State has received much recognition because of his efforts to continue the Ball family's generosity. He follows an impressive list of connoisseurs, artists and critics including J. Carter Brown, Suzi Gablik, Grace Hartigan and Joan Snyder, who have given the lecture. 

The Edmund F. Petty Memorial Lecture Fund was established in 1987 with support from the Margaret Ball Petty Foundation, the Ball Brothers Foundation and the Petty family.

For more information, call 765-285-5242 or visit www.bsu.edu/artmuseum.