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January 29, 2003

Media Contacts: Jan Jennings (858) 822-1684

ARTS PHILANTHROPIST JAMES STUART DESILVA TO BE HONORED AT A TRIBUTE FEB. 7 AT THE IDA AND CECIL GREEN FACULTY CLUB AT UCSD

James Stuart DeSilva, the arts philanthropist who launched the critically acclaimed Stuart Collection of outdoor site specific sculpture at the University of California, San Diego, will be honored at a tribute at 4 p.m. Feb. 7 in the Ida and Cecil Green Faculty Club on the UCSD campus. All DeSilva friends and colleagues are invited to attend.

Stuart, who was born Nov. 5, 1919 in Miami, died Sept. 12, 2002, in San Diego.

Tribute remarks will be made by Robert C. Dynes, UCSD Chancellor; Richard C. Atkinson, UC President; Jerome S. Katzin, UC San Diego Foundation Board of Trustees; Patrick J. Ledden, Provost, Muir College; Hugh M. Davies, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and Mary L. Beebe, Director of the Stuart Collection.

DeSilva launched the Stuart Collection in 1981 and over two decades donated almost $2 million toward the collection.

Landscape Architecture heralded the Stuart Collection as “a true collection of distinguished works by some of today’s most dynamic artists.” Art in America calls the collection “adventurous,” “ironic,” “humorous,” and “striking.” The American Institute of Architects (AIA) honored the collection in 1994 for its “provocative works,” calling it an “amazing collection.”

The collection bears DeSilva’s middle name because he wanted to deflect attention from himself. He appointed an internationally distinguished advisory committee made up of art historians, museum directors and working artists with a mission of finding the most provocative artists and sculptors to create their site specific works on the UCSD campus.

The first piece in the collection is the 28-foot-tall, multicolored Sun God, the first large outdoor work in America by the late Niki de Saint Phalle. There are now 15 works in the collection.

In addition to his serving as president of the Stuart Collection at UCSD, DeSilva was a founding member of the Chancellor’s Associates and served on the UC San Diego Foundation Board of Trustees and the Board of Overseers. He is the recipient of the Chancellor’s Associates Distinguished Service Medal, the Revelle Medal and the UC San Diego Foundation Civis Universitatis Award.

DeSilva also served on the boards of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the San Diego Symphony and the San Diego Museum of Art.

When he died, DeSilva was president of the San Diego tuna fishing and helicopter company, Kenram Corporation. He and his wife, Marne, moved to San Diego in 1971 and he started his tuna fishing fleet. Prior to that, he operated canneries in New York and Puerto Rico, and prior to that worked at a Terminal Island cannery owned by his father-in-law.

DeSilva majored in business at the University of Chicago where he developed an interest in classical music and opera. In 1969, DeSilva took a year off from the cannery business to study art history as a graduate student at Columbia University before making San Diego his home for the past 32 years.

For further information on the De Silva tribute or the Stuart Collection, please call (858) 534-2117.