Gordon Gilkey was born March 10, 1912 and died October 28, 200. He was 88 years old when he died.
His wife, the former Vivian Moore, died in 1995. He was survived by a son, a sister, and a granddaughter.
He attended Albany College and the University of Oregon
Gilkey was the first graduate to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree in printmaking from the University of Oregon in 1936
In 1937, he was selected as an official artist to document the 1939 World's Fair in New York City.
During World War II, Gilkey wrote a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt suggesting that the armed forces be mindful of artwork and minimize its damage and destruction. He was assigned to command a unit that attempted to prevent and minimize destruction and theft of European art.
After the war, Gilkey was assigned to find and confiscate Nazi Propaganda artwork.
Gilkey joined the faculty of Oregon State College - now Oregon State University - in 1947 as the chair for the Department of Art.
After 15 years as department chair, he became the first Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, now the College of Liberal Arts.
Gilkey worked hard to get liberal arts majors approved. The chancellor's office was insistent in keeping Oregon State an agricultural and technical school; however Gilkey lead efforts to expand the University's academic offerings. Thanks to his efforts, by 1966, majors in art, economics, English, history, political science, communications, and Russian Studies were approved.
Gilkey played a large role in adding French, German, music, and sociology majors to the approved list in 1967.
Gilkey was instrumental in obtaining a $25,000 federal grant for art organizations in Oregon.
He was curator for the Vivian and Gordon Gilkey Center for Graphic Arts at the Portland Art Museum. He donated more than 10,000 prints to the museum.
Gilkey was the printmaker-in-residence at the Pacific Northwest College of Art until 2000.
He helped establish the Oregon Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Gilkey retired from Oregon State due to state-mandated age restrictions after 30 years of service to the university.
On June 11, 2000, Gilkey was presented with an honorary doctorate degree from Oregon State University for his more than 70 years of preserving, promoting, creating, and teaching art.
Gilkey's artwork can be found in museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the British Museum in London, the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, Germany, and the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou.
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