George Vollmer has been an influential advocate of the Wichita Art Museum, acting as patron, director, adjunct curator, and booster. This exhibition in the Vollmer Gallery features a selection of his donations of artwork.

George cites his family and the Museum itself as the two major influences in his collecting. George’s paternal grandfather was a sculptor. His father, Clarence, was a devoted patron of the Prairie Print Makers. George significantly added to that collection for the Museum and has carried on his father’s interest by following contemporary artists in Wichita. On the maternal side, grandmother Lillian George was an avid collector of early American glass, another area in which George collected with the Museum’s benefit in mind.

Even in the Museum’s early decades, George watched the arrival of the acquisitions of the Murdock Collection. He determined that the Murdock Collection’s emphasis on American modernism left other categories of American art underrepresented. That belief inspired him to purchase Severin Roesen’s Nature’s Bounty, Albert Bierstadt’s Sketch of the Bernese Alps, and Bruce Crane’s Sunset Glow.

George’s impact extends beyond the artworks he donated, and it includes his tremendous service as Museum director (1973-1975) and trustee (1970-1975). The Museum proudly presents this exhibition as a tribute to the deep contributions of this special Museum friend.