Deere helps put art in Quad Cities

Deere and Company is helping “picture” a new art gallery in the Quad Cities. Davenport Museum of Art director Linda Downs says it’s part of an ongoing capital campaign. The new museum was designed by the London architect David Chipperfield, and its fundraising campaign aims for 30-million dollars to build a new museum in downtown Davenport.V.O. Figge, a prominent banker in the city, established a foundation in his name and his son Tom Figge is continuing the tradition of giving. The Figge Foundation gave twelve million to the art-museum campaign, giving a jump-start to its 30-million-dollar fundraising goal, and the Deere donation’s a big part of the rest. The director says the new building will allow the display of the Davenport Art Museum’s entire collection, at last. Downs says they’ve never been able to show it all, and the collection includes American and European art as well as one of the nation’s best collections of Haitian art and Mexican colonial paintings. Downs says they’re letting the construction contracts right now, if weather holds digging will start in the spring, and the new Figge Art Center will open in March 2005.