CELEBRATING DONORS: SHANNON RODGERS AND CORA GINSBURG

Higbee Gallery | Anne Bissonnette, Curator

The Kent State University Museum was established with the gift of extraordinary examples of historic costume and decorative arts collected by Shannon Rodgers and Jerry Silverman. Instrumental to the formation of Shannon's collection of costume was the friendship, collaboration and expertise of Cora Ginsburg. Cora's Manhattan shop, filled with superb antique costumes and textiles, provided Shannon with many of the most important pieces he acquired. In her turn, Mrs. Ginsburg has been a generous lender and donor to the Museum. Pieces from her personal collection added enormously to our exhibition "Costumes, Quilts and Coverlets, Continuing Traditions", and in 1988 an exhibition featured embroideries from her collection. To honor Shannon during the Museum's 10th anniversary, she presented him with five notebook of painstakingly collected textile samples spanning the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, and with 170 bound volumes constituting her impressive library of 19th century ladies' fashion periodicals. It is now our turn to honor Cora Ginsburg for her unselfish mentoring of our founding benefactor and for her exceptional generosity to the Museum.