OMAHA, NE.- Joslyn Art Museum director J. Brooks Joyner announced today that the Museum’s new sculpture garden will be named in honor of the late Peter Kiewit (pictured right, 1960) and the private philanthropic trust he created at the time of his death in 1979, the Peter Kiewit Foundation. The Foundation awards grants in Omaha and across Nebraska and western Iowa. Mr. Kiewit had declared that it was the work ethic of Nebraskans that had allowed him to be so successful and he wanted to return his wealth to their communities. Joslyn is extremely grateful to the Peter Kiewit Foundation for its generous support.

Joyner said, “There is no other person as connected to Joslyn Art Museum, from its conception and construction to its place as one of our city’s cultural icons, as Peter Kiewit. For nearly 50 years, Peter helped to shape the Museum, from 1928, when his company won the Joslyn Memorial contract, to 1974, when he retired after 15 years of service on Joslyn’s board of trustees. Joslyn was one of his favorite places, and he was proud of the Museum for both its beauty and usefulness. We extend our deepest thanks to the Peter Kiewit Foundation for their long-time support of the Museum, its exhibitions, programs, and capital projects and are pleased to recognize Peter Kiewit as a philanthropist and as a father of this Omaha arts gem by naming our sculpture garden in honor of him and his Foundation.”

Among the funds the Peter Kiewit Foundation has contributed are 18 grants to Joslyn Art Museum totaling more than $26 million ranging in size from $7,000 to a $20 million matching grant to the Heritage Joslyn Campaign for Western Heritage Museum and Joslyn in the late 1980s. These grants have been for purposes such as special exhibition sponsorship, including the popular exhibitions Searching for Ancient Egypt, Dale Chihuly: Inside & Out, and Millet to Matisse; free admission for the general public on Saturday mornings since 1998; the purchase of an early 18th-century Chinese eight-panel screen, featured this year in the Elegance of the Qing Court exhibition, in 2005 (with funds also provided by Mr. Anunt Hengtrakul); and capital projects including the 1994 Museum addition, campus expansion, the refurbishment of permanent collection Gallery 4 (now, the Kiewit Gallery); north entrance improvements, mechanical systems automation, re-roofing, and re-building of the Grand Staircase.

"Naming the new sculpture garden in honor of Peter Kiewit, his family, and the personal charitable foundation he created is a fitting honor for him. It recognizes Mr. Kiewit's citizenship and lifelong commitment to the quality of life in Omaha", said Lyn Wallin Ziegenbein, executive director of the Peter Kiewit Foundation. "He was proud of his affiliation with Joslyn Art Museum. Mr. Kiewit understood how important cultural reservoirs are to the vitality of a community and that Joslyn was among the finest", she said.

Peter Kiewit was born in Omaha in 1900. He attended Mason Grade School and was a 1918 graduate of Central High School. After attending Dartmouth College for one year, he returned to Omaha where he worked his entire life in his family's business, Peter Kiewit Sons' Company, rising from a water boy and timekeeper to the chairmanship in 1931. He made provisions for his employees to become stockholders in the Company, which has grown through the years to become one of the largest privately-owned construction and mining companies in the U.S. Mr. Kiewit served as a trustee of Joslyn Art Museum from 1959 to 1974.

Coincidentally, it was his family's construction business which built Joslyn's Memorial Building in the late 1920s. The Peter Kiewit Foundation was formed in 1979 strictly from Mr. Kiewit's personal estate and is the product of his own design and direction. It is not connected legally or administratively in any way with the company which continues to carry his name. He had frequently dismissed the value of inherited wealth, but few knew that he had made formal plans to commit all of his personal assets to a charitable trust to benefit his fellow Nebraskans. He studied models of other organized philanthropies and distilled his own values into the framework of his Peter Kiewit Trust Agreement, the irrevocable charitable trust activated at the time of his death.

To date, the Peter Kiewit Foundation has awarded more than $450 million in grants since 1980 for a range of projects statewide for civic, cultural, educational, and human services needs. It has provided an additional $40 million to fund college scholarships for Nebraska youth.

Peter Kiewit Foundation Sculpture Garden
Situated between Joslyn Art Museum and Central High School, the Peter Kiewit Foundation Sculpture Garden will be the focal point of a $10 million campus redevelopment plan that is dramatically changing the face of Joslyn’s grounds. The Peter Kiewit Foundation Sculpture Garden will encompass the entire area east of the Museum building — from the grand staircase and atrium entrances to the Central High School property line to the east, and from the Dodge Street sidewalk to the entrance drive that separates the sculpture garden from the Museum’s new parking garden to the north.

Four outdoor galleries comprise the sculpture garden. The northern most garden gallery, east of the Museum’s Scott Pavilion, will be divided into smaller intimate spaces while the southern-most area of the garden, spanning the Memorial building’s east side, will feature three distinct spaces, including a center festival garden gallery on axis with the grand staircase that will provide more open space for large outdoor events and concerts. The garden will include two water features, a reflecting pool with granite walkway and a dramatic 83-foot-long, seven-foot-tall flowing water wall; granite paths; and grassy surfaces with generous landscaping — trees, shrubs, and special grasses — setting the stage for the placement of important sculptures from Joslyn’s collection. The sculpture garden’s entry plaza will serve as both the formal vehicular approach to the Scott Pavilion entrance and the setting for a signature outdoor sculpture commissioned for the Museum’s permanent collection. Accessible via both the Dodge Street entrance drive and the 24th Street entrance drive, the entry plaza will be flanked by granite pavers that closely mirror the interior theme and material quality of the surfaces in the atrium of the Scott Pavilion.

Joslyn Art Museum’s Sculpture Garden and Campus Redevelopment Project
In November 2006, at the beginning of its 75th anniversary celebration, Joslyn Art Museum announced plans to begin the long-anticipated redefinition, beautification, and improvement of the grounds resulting from a strategic partnership involving Joslyn, Creighton University, and Omaha Public Schools. Through the partnership, the Museum has succeeded in consolidating its campus while adding significant new property for expansion and development (gaining back the land traded to Central High and used for the football training field nearly 25 years earlier). A collaboration between HDR, Inc., and Kiewit Construction Company, the campus redevelopment project represents the second significant capital initiative undertaken by Joslyn Art Museum since it opened in 1931, preceded by the 1994 Scott Pavilion addition.

Phase one of the project was completed in the fall of 2007 and included campus redefinition, the creation of an innovative parking garden, and a new entrance off of Dodge Street. Phase two, underway now, includes the creation of the Peter Kiewit Sculpture Garden, including water features and entry plaza spaces; the new Discovery Garden, presenting “child friendly” sculpture in a setting combining the magic of art and nature; landscaping; and the addition of new sculptures.