50 | JANUARY 25 • 2024 J
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arts environment, and I’ve been 
working with them on how to 
expand it.
”
The couple has long been 
interested in art. He collected 
and displayed posters when 
he was in high school, and she 
went to antique and automo-
tive shows with her parents. 
The first item they collected 
together was a Jean Dubuffet 
lithograph. 
Their continuing arts advis-
er and friend is Lois Pincus 
Cohn, first known through her 
Birmingham gallery. 
“The local Jewish artists 
represented in our collec-
tion include photographer 
Elayne Gross and painters 
Marcia Freedman and Robert 
Schefman,
” Rebecca has report-
ed. 
“Other Jewish artists 
whose works we have include 
Magdalena Abakanowicz, 
a Polish sculptor; Pierre 
Alechinsky, a French print-
maker; and Sol LeWitt, an 
American conceptual artist.
”

EDUCATION AND ART 
Alan said that an important 
goal of their gifts to arts institu-
tions is to take variable costs off 
the table. With the Ross fund-
ing, MSU exhibition staging 
expenses, such as insurance and 
setup, can be covered. 
“The Broad Museum has 
three focuses — students, facul-
ty and community,
” Alan said. 
“The Broad is executing exhibi-
tions in concert with the facul-
ty’s curriculum. The exhibitions 
on display are enhancing cur-
rent syllabuses. 
“The students are being 
taught, and then they go to the 
museum that expands what’s 
going on. This is really the 
mission of the true academic 
at a university museum, but 
the exhibitions are not only 
educational to the students and 
faculty. They also perform that 
same function for the outside 
community.
”
Alan, the descendant of 
Holocaust survivors, found his 
current work through an ad 

in the Detroit Jewish News. He 
now heads up Gallagher Fire 
Equipment, a fire suppression 
and alarm contractor, and 
Rebecca takes care of account 
responsibilities for the firm.
Alan graduated, cum 
laude, from the MSU College 
of Agriculture and Natural 
Resources in 1977 and earned 
a master’s degree in business 
administration from Babson in 
1979. He met his wife through 
work at a tech venture in 
Silicon Valley. After living in 
New York for several years, the 
two moved to Alan’s home state 
of Michigan in 1990.
“The MSU Broad has become 
a significant part of our lives,
” 
Rebecca said. “Its mission close-
ly aligns with our belief that art 
is an extremely important com-
ponent of everyday living.
”
They have supported 
MSU arts programs beyond 
the museum by creating the 
Alan and Rebecca Ross DIA 
Enrichment Fund at MSU 
to strengthen collaborations 

between the DIA and the 
Department of Art, Art History 
and Design in the MSU College 
of Arts and Letters. 
Both Alan and Rebecca read-
ily express their commitments 
to art, which has them traveling 
to different art centers to view a 
variety of works.
“We like a lot of art,
” Rebecca 
said. “We like the thought 
behind the pieces and what 
each artist was trying to convey, 
and that sometimes makes us 
more interested in a particular 
artist or a particular type of art. 
A lot of our pieces are concep-
tual.
”
Alan commented, “
Art is so 
personal. Everyone looks at 
it differently. That’s the good 
thing. It’s thought provoking.
”
The couple looks forward to 
doing more traveling to expe-
rience the different kinds of art 
they will discover through a 
variety of presenters. One trip 
they anticipate will take them to 
Israel and the art centers in that 
country. 

Alan and Rebecca Ross stand in 
front of the work “Untitled” (London 
Aquatics Center) by Zaha Hadid, gifted 
by the couple to the museum. 

ARTS&LIFE
ART

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