The beauty of the Donald R. Seawell Grand Ballroom is that it’s like a chameleon, easily adapting to whatever scene or mood the group occupying it is trying to establish. Recently, it was Ghost Ranch, the northern New Mexico sanctuary where artist Georgia O’Keeffe lived and painted her trademark flowers, shells, skulls and stones in the decades preceding her death in 1986.
The occasion was Dinner with Miss O’Keeffe, which raised $200,000 for the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver. Five hundred and fifty guests – dressed in outfits ranging from cowboy hats and bolo ties to colorful gowns – turned out for the benefit chaired by Georgia Mulligan, Natalie Rekstad-Lynn and Holly Kylberg. Honorary chairmen were Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and his wife, Helen Thorpe, who led the traditional after-dinner tequila toast; Chris Meza, whose Meza Construction was one of the evening’s sponsors, served as master of ceremonies.
“(Our) supporters have come to expect events that have that ‘MCA style’ – lively, educational and full of surprises – and I think we hit the mark once again,” Cydney Payton, the MCA’s director and curator, said. In previous years, the MCA has hosted Dinner With Dali and Dinner With Frida.
A pre-dinner silent auction was a great success thanks to support from the Denver Art Dealers Association. Bobbi Walker of Walker Fine Arts got 17 galleries to donate pieces that accounted for half the money raised in the silent bidding. Denver’s design community also supported the silent auction, with Jennifer Roberts of Composition hitting up 20 colleagues to donate handcrafted items.
Gary Corbett raced through an 18-item live auction, but not so quickly as to miss such generous gestures as David Merage’s $3,000 purchase of a fine art and dining package donated by Salon d’Arts. Merage donated the package back to the cause, and it was resold for $1,700.
The president of the MCA board, Karl
Kister, joined Woody Beardsley and Mark Falcone in sharing several bits of good news, including the fact that the family and friends of MCA founder Sue Cannon had honored her with a gift to MCA’s capital campaign, and that the new David Adjaye-designed building’s Grand Entrance will bear her name. It was also revealed that a previously anonymous gift of $1 million had been made by Tom and Noel Congdon as a tribute to the memory of their daughter, Natasha. The Large Works Gallery will be named for her.
The dinner, donated by Three Tomatoes Catering, was enjoyed by such MCA supporters as Ellie Caulkins; architect Peter Dominick and his wife, Philae; Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey and his wife, Maggie; Don Greco; Jill Crow; Ted and Susan Pinkowitz; Josh Hanfling; Joanne and Harvey Sender; Ann Levy; Jan Nelsen and Len Allsup; Margaret Cunningham; Kathleen Perry; Ren Cannon; Jim and Suzanne Balog; Dee Chirafisi; Stephanie Roppolo; Dr. Dean Prina; Kevin Causey; Lovedy Barbatelli; Cameron Letterman and Charlie Price; Karen and Ivar Zeile; Robin Rule; Ann Coggeshall; Andy and Renee Levy, who were guests of Mark and Sha Bishop of MB Consultants; Shirleyan Price and David Spira; and Marcela de la Mar.
Society editor Joanne Davidson can be reached at 303-809-1314 or jmdpost@aol.com.
