My Museum: Art for All

Buffie and Richard Tucker (75JD) believe that art is for everyone. Not only did they teach their own daughters, Jessica Tucker Glick (07JD) and Ashley Tucker, about the power of art, but the couple also is inspiring future generations of Iowa students and faculty. Their gift to the My Museum fundraising campaign will result in the naming of a visual classroom in the new museum.

“The exposure my parents gave us to so many forms of art instilled in me the ability to appreciate work from all genres,” says Jessica, who lives in Iowa City and practices law alongside her father at Phelan Tucker Law LLP. She joined the museum’s volunteer Members Council as a way of staying connected to the place that has meant so much to her parents.

It’s a place that changed Buffie’s life when the Oklahoma native set foot in Iowa City in summer 1979. Her future mother-in-law took her to the museum, and it was love at first sight. “I’ve always had a great interest in art, and I was so struck by the breadth and quality of its collections,” says Buffie. She has a degree in art education and began volunteering for the museum in 1980, eventually becoming an employee. She retired as the Members Council coordinator in 2012 and continues to serve as a Stanley Museum volunteer today

Richard—an Iowa City native who studied in Florence, Italy, during his time as an undergraduate at Stanford University—shares Buffie’s passion for the arts. Throughout the years, they’ve attended many theater performances and visited numerous galleries and museums, and together, they have built a deeply personal art collection. It features pieces by artists whom they know or who have a connection to the university or the state.

The couple and their daughters eagerly anticipate the day when they can, once again, view such works in the Stanley Museum’s own collections. “We most want to see the return of Jackson Pollock’s Mural to Iowa City—and to view it hanging in its new home, along with many of our other favorites,” says Richard.

Once that happens, students and faculty from across campus also will have the chance to visit the third-floor Tucker Visual Classroom, where they can request individual pieces from the museum’s collection for closer study and understanding.

“We have so many memories of quiet art viewings, special exhibitions, and many other activities and events with our family and friends,” says Buffie. “Our hope is that the new museum will give present and future generations even more enjoyment and educational opportunities.”