By JUDITH BRIN INGBER
Evan Maclyn Maurer died Nov. 2, 2023, in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 79.
Maurer was an athlete and scholar, a passionate art collector, innovative museum director and curator, charismatic lecturer and devoted father and grandfather.
Remembrance
Born in Newark, New Jersey, Maurer graduated from Amherst College, where he studied art history. He earned his master’s degree in art history and museology from the University of Minnesota. His doctorate in surrealism and primitivism was awarded by the University of Pennsylvania. He also received three honorary doctorates and was named a chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the government of France.
Maurer’s career spanned more than 40 years, beginning as the assistant director of the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia); then he was the curator of tribal arts at the Art Institute of Chicago, followed by the role of director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art.
In 1988, he returned to Minneapolis as director of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and later he also became its CEO. At Mia he opened new galleries for Indigenous arts and outreach to Native communities across the Plains and Midwest (both through Mia’s collections and publications). Maurer also initiated free admission to Mia, thereby dramatically increasing attendance, exposing a greater portion of the public to art. His vision also included expanding the Asian collections and expanding the museum with the $30 million Target Wing and raising $50 million for other expansion and renovation projects.
Maurer was also a force for the arts in the Jewish community.
Rabbi Hayim Herring in a recent interview said, “We have lost a great light.” Rabbi Herring first knew Maurer when the rabbi was congregational leader of Beth El Synagogue when Maurer was his congregant. “Evan never did things small. Judaism was so much a part of his identity, and he was so passionate about it. He didn’t mind shaking things up at the staid Mia. I remember when he told me, so very excited, that he decided to establish a Jewish gallery at the Mia. It was as if he had had an epiphany.” Maurer received support for the Jewish gallery from St. Paul philanthropists Mickey and Harold Smith.
When Herring became head of identity and continuity at the Minneapolis Jewish Federation, the two men worked closely together. Perhaps their most important project was programming for Rimon: The Minnesota Jewish Arts Council, which was founded in 1995.
Longtime Rimon director David Harris also recalled Maurer’s invaluable contribution. “Evan was one of the co-founders of Rimon. I don’t think that initiative would have gained any traction without him. In the early years we knew that we were trying something new, bringing together organizational leaders, working artists and arts-loving members of the Jewish community to the same table. That kind of big-picture planning hadn’t been done before in the Jewish arts world here. Evan knew that his position at Mia carried weight (and prestige) with both the organizational leaders and the artists, especially since artists were accustomed to being ignored by the organized Jewish community. All the Rimon meetings in the early years were held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, which gave the gatherings a sense of occasion for all who attended.”
Maurer saw to it that two Jewish arts conferences organized by Rimon were held at Mia, the latter with performances by Minnesota-based Jewish artists and panels with distinguished scholars. It was extremely well-attended. “The conferences were crucial in reaching out to the arts-loving public who were hungry to learn how Jewish life had been shaped and interpreted by artists in all disciplines,” Harris recalled.
Another trendsetting Rimon project was an arts contest known as the Tzedakkah Box Project, a contest to design a box traditionally designated for charity (tzedaka in Hebrew). All the artists’ entries were exhibited at Mia.
However, what Rabbi Herring considered to be the epitome of Maurer’s work was Rimon’s Sukkot Project. This, too, was a juried contest to award the most innovative building of a sukka (the temporary structure or booth for eating and even sleeping in to celebrate the weeklong autumn festival of Sukkot). There were many submissions, not all from Jews. They were displayed at Peavey Plaza in downtown Minneapolis, as well as at the JCCs in St. Paul and St. Louis Park.
“In addition to the actual building and displaying of the structures, we had a conference on affordable housing and homelessness at the museum, with all the faith communities included as well as nonprofit organizations,” said Rabbi Herring. “Evan told me the Family Day at the museum designed to explain the holiday was the most well-attended program Mia had sponsored, with over 3,400 people in attendance. It all represented Evan’s forte: presenting Jewish values through the arts that the general public could identify with.”
After 16 years directing Mia, Dr. Maurer retired in 2005 for health reasons, moving to Santa Monica. But he didn’t sit back. In 2018, he organized an exhibition of Mimbres pottery with his colleague Tony Berlan (the pottery dated back to 850 C.E. from what is now southwestern New Mexico). Maurer and Berlan presented their new interpretation of the designs in a hardcover exhibition book titled Decoding Mimbres Painting, for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. The exhibit won unprecedented awards.
In Maurer’s last year, he had an exhibition of his own works on paper, “The More You Look, The More You See,” at Yiwei Gallery in Venice, Calif. At the time of his death, he was writing a manuscript on the life and art of Max Ernst. The book was left unfinished.
A private funeral was held in New Jersey in November 2023. Evan Maurer is survived by his sister, Sheryl Larner; sons, Noah (Ava Bromberg) and Aaron (Samantha Calvano); granddaughters Ruby and Belle; and ex-wife, Naomi Margolis.
***
Sources of information for this article included Noah Maurer, Ann Arbor News, Star Tribune, plus interviews with Rabbi Hayim Herring and David Harris.
(American Jewish World, January 2024)
