Jordan Schnitzer is turning his attention toward arts education for students in kindergarten through 12th grade in Oregon’s public schools. 

A week ago, he hosted the opening gala of the Oregon Art Educators Association, the professional organization of K-12 arts teachers, at the Schnitzer Collection, home to his vast collection of contemporary prints and multiples.

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THE ART OF LEARNING: An Occasional Series

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There, Schnitzer addressed approximately 40 teachers. “I am so frustrated about the lack of art education in grade schools and high schools,” he said, to applause. 

He did not announce a gift or any specific proposals.  But, he told the crowd, “I don’t see the city and state funding growing to what it should be for the arts. I think it’s important that the private sector reaches out and we take existing arts organizations, museums, and other arts organizations, and come in and partner with you.”

The impact of Schnitzer’s philanthropy for art, especially in the Northwest, is significant. Art museums at Washington State University, the University of Oregon, and Portland State University all bear his name. 

In April, he announced an additional $10 million gift to Portland State University, $5 million of which will help fund construction of a new building for the College of the Arts (which will be renamed the Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design). 

Another $4 million of the funds will sustain the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, which opened in 2019. The remaining $1 million will beautify PSU’s campus by adding outdoor art, new signage, and lighting, all part of a broader effort of PSU’s to sharpen campus identity. 

A philanthropist, real estate developer with properties throughout the West, and scion of Portland’s Schnitzer family, he owns 20,000 works of art. That makes it one of the largest privately owned print collections in the country, including works by Jasper Johns, David Hockney and Andy Warhol. ARTnews recently named Schnitzer among the top 200 collectors internationally for the second consecutive year. 

Schnitzer first developed a program to share the work from his personal and Family Foundation collections in 1997. Selections from those collections are regularly sent to museums across the country, at Schnitzer’s expense, where they are exhibited, free of charge and open to the public. So far, 120 museums have hosted 180 exhibitions featuring artwork from the collection. 

It’s all stored in a vast warehouse next to the Schnitzer Collection. Walking through it is a bit like walking through a cleaner, less intimidating version of the warehouse in the final scene of Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark. 

It is spotlessly clean. The art is framed in frames made in a full woodshop at the warehouse, which also makes the cases the art is shipped in when sent to museums.  

Furthering arts education

When it comes to how arts education in public schools can be bolstered, Schnitzer adamantly believes that the answer does not lie in more taxes. 

Calling himself a “Democrat who’s fiscally conservative and socially progressive,” he thinks the far right and far left political factions “are bringing a real threat to democracy in this country.” 

He opposes the amount of taxes that Portlanders and Multnomah County residents pay, including Preschool for All tax, passed by Multnomah County voters in 2020, which taxes people who make over $250,000 a tax rate of 1.5 percent and those making over $400,000 a tax rate of 3 percent to pay for preschool. The money generated funds free preschool for all three- and four-year olds in Multnomah County. 

Schnitzer says every child should have access to free preschool. But, he said, “that should have been a statewide tax.” 

Naturally, he thinks increased private philanthropy is the ticket. In a 30-minute interview with Oregon Arts Watch, Schnitzer argued that the private sector – including philanthropists and foundations – should begin working with arts organizations, museums, and other artistic and cultural institutions to provide arts education in schools. 

This interview has been edited for clarity. 

Oregon Arts Watch: You recently announced a $10 million gift to PSU. You have given gifts to art museums at PSU, Washington State University, and University of Oregon, all of which are public universities. Why K through 12 education now?

Schnitzer: There’s no more or less importance to arts education for preschool through (the age of) 102. I was lucky. I grew up with art. 

People get intimidated by things they don’t know. So, (people may ask) “art, what’s it mean?” And, “Art museums? That’s for some elitist few.” 

So, at the college level, as long as we have amazing young people… (and can) get them to go to a museum on campus…then maybe when they graduate and they go back to San Jose and Tupelo and Tampa and to Chicago, to big towns, little towns, maybe they’ll go to museums there.

A light bulb effect, almost.
That’s right. That’s why I like university art museums. It’s our last best hope of getting younger people, before they go out in the world, to maybe see how wonderful it is to have visual arts in their life. 

Now for grade school students, I think it’s really a very depressing story. 

In Oregon or generally?
Across the country. Unfortunately, in the state of Oregon and across the country, every school district is under siege financially. The student-teacher ratio is up substantially. And, you know, you try to cut sports and all the dads and moms scream like crazy – as they should. In terms of cutting the arts, you don’t tend to have as much broad base support of saying, “Hey, school districts, don’t do that.”

You said you were lucky that you grew up with art. What impact do you think it can have on young kids to growing up with art and have consistent access to art and music and theater throughout their childhood?
Well, I would say it’s even more critical today than it was 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 years ago. Why do I say that? We live in an information age beyond anything any generation has ever experienced. Everyone with their smartphones has access to more information than the giant IBM machines of the sixties. That’s been a wonderful benefit. On the other hand, the social media, the bullying…it’s very complicated to be a younger person today in the latter years of grade school and high school. We’re seeing that in increased levels of depression, suicide, and so forth. They’re having to walk through a minefield of social media bombardment of where to go, what to think, who’s popular, who isn’t, and whatever.

In a day and age when you can’t stop this barrage of information and misinformation, the last places where no one can say, “what you’re thinking is wrong,” is the arts and nature. 

So it’s critical that they have art, music, culture, theater, and dance in their lives. So they are inspired and feel hopeful and can feel good about themselves when they create art or experience art. 

In Oregon, what is taught in a particular school district is decided at the superintendent’s level. The Oregon Department of Education does not have a fully funded position for someone to oversee arts education at the state level. The arts are one of the first things that can get cut when school budgets face challenges. What do you think needs to change? How do you start to have that conversation?
The reality is that funding is not suddenly gonna appear. I’m not being critical of the tough choices that superintendents and school boards and educators have. If you’re sitting there between having to cut an art teacher or someone to teach math, what are you going to do? So they’re under huge pressure. The solution, I think, is in the private sector and the nonprofit sector. The art museums and art organizations need to step up and develop programs in the communities to reach into schools or have other programs outside of schools where kids can get exposed to art. I see that as the only solution.

How do you think private philanthropy can play a role?
Huge, huge. I get very frustrated with the political sentiment of “let’s tax all these wealthy people,” and so forth. Ultimately, the bulk of that wealth – the vast bulk – will go towards philanthropic activities. You’ve seen that with leaders like Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, one after another. 

We shouldn’t be punishing those who are successful. We should be focusing on how we continue to bring up lower-income and middle class to increase their wealth. In terms of state and federal funding, we’re already being taxed a lot. You’re not going to see suddenly in the state of Oregon a greater amount of money.

Those of us in the private sector who believe in the importance of art need to rally together around existing arts organizations and say, “Hey, art museums, art educators, how can we reach out and augment and help students in the grade schools, in the high school programs that we would fund?” 

I want to talk about Portland specifically. When you recently gave $10 million to PSU’s School of Art and Design, it was connected to this growing idea that art is key to revitalizing downtown cores. Do you believe that?
Absolutely. 

Why? 
First, I’ve seen it. The art exhibition program takes me to lots of cities I would not ordinarily go to: Omaha, Jacksonville, Missoula, all over the place. And especially in those Midwest towns…the arts communities are changing the nature of their downtowns. It’s affordable for artists and it’s affordable for families. You can get a heck of a house and a good education in a lot of smaller communities. One advantage of the pandemic – a lot of people that were able to work remotely went to a lot of lower cost areas. And that began to build more of a mass in some of those cities. And the cultural leaders are taking old warehouses or brick buildings and making it into art spaces. That creates an energy. And they start changing the character of the neighborhood.

And then it becomes a neat place to be for young people in their twenties. And suddenly there are clubs and restaurants and shops and stores. So from a sheer economic standpoint, the arts are what is helping create a critical mass and a hipness that causes people to be there.

And a hopefulness.
Sure. Now, Portland. Downtown is quite challenged, still. The vacancy in Portland is approaching 40% downtown. In Portland, we have the highest tax rate in Multnomah County of any place in the country. Now, that additional tax for the preschool tax. The intent was wonderful. Every preschool child should be able to go to preschool and kindergarten for free. But the way it was taxed, just in Multnomah County, has caused a flight of well off and more well off people to leave. 

The renovation of the Keller, the new Portland State Arts programs, things we’re trying to do, the art museum expansion. The Historical Society. At least we can get people to start coming downtown to those institutions. It’ll begin to break the last couple of years pattern where everyone has wanted to stay away from downtown.  It’s going to take time. 

There is a proposal to eliminate the Portland Arts Tax, which taxes everyone $35 a year, and create a new arts-parks levy. Do you support that?
I don’t know. I saw it, but I haven’t read through it. I don’t know. (Pauses) We’ve seen a lot of taxes in the metropolitan area, and we haven’t seen those dollars being efficiently and effectively used in ways that make people feel they’re getting good value for the amount of taxes they’re paying.

California recently passed a statewide proposition that is a property tax that will pay for arts education in the state’s public schools. Do you think Oregon could ever do something like that?
In Multnomah County, when we have the highest tax rates of anywhere in the country. Oregon has one of the higher taxes of anywhere in the country. 

In terms of the tax structure, I think we had a period the last 10 years where we had well intended people at the county, the city, and the state that maybe didn’t do as good a job as maybe they hoped to do.

I think, right now, we need to first have the public officials take a look at the infrastructure in the city, the county, and the state, and say, “hey, just because we’ve done it this way doesn’t mean we’ve got to keep doing it this way.” We need to be more efficient and more effective with our dollars to prove to and create credibility on the part of the voters. 

Those were all the questions I wanted to ask, but would you like to say anything else?
Sure. What you haven’t asked is “why art?” Art is critical for me as I try to have a work-life balance. When I go see this Mel Bochner show out here (at the Schnitzer Collection), it just takes me away. I’m, visually, on a color field journey. Reading the words absorbs me and makes me think, which I think ultimately is what every artist wants you to do. In my opinion, artists have always been and always will be chroniclers of our time. They’re visual reporters as you are a written reporter. Same thing with dance, theater, all those art forms. 

As a parent with my four kids, I wish I had a wand to wave so they wouldn’t have to go through all the ups and downs – health issues, girlfriends, boyfriends, kids, parents, whatever it all is. What I’ve suggested to people is if you can help your children enjoy the arts, when they have those problems, they can go to a museum, go to a ballet, to a symphony, a concert. And for those minutes, they’re taken away from their issues. Maybe they’re inspired consciously and unconsciously so when they go back to face their issues, they’ll have a better perspective, a healthier attitude.