A Home for Art's Sake

When Denver Art Museum mega-donors Kent and Vicki Logan built their spread in Vail, the result was no ordinary log-and-antlers lodge.

During the last few years, our Queen of the Plains has finally become more queen than plain, decked out in an array of architectural and cultural gems: the new Central Library designed by Michael Graves, the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver, the not-yet-out-of-the-box Clyfford Still Museum, and, debuting this month, the Denver Art Museum’s Frederic C. Hamilton Building.

Tapping an internationally renowned architect was a stroke of genius for the DAM—the shiny new Daniel Libeskind-designed project added just the kind of cache to attract buzz, dollars—and donors. Among those is a multi-faceted bequest from retired financial analyst Kent Logan and his wife, Vicki.

Complementing the Logans’ 2002 donation to the DAM of 213 objects, this new gift consists of a $10 million endowment for the Museum’s Department of Modern & Contemporary Art and more than 200 pieces of what Kent Logan calls “conceptual realist” art. “Radar: Selections from the Kent and Vicki Logan Collection” will inaugurate the Logans’ namesake atrium gallery in the Hamilton Building when it opens.