50 | JANUARY 25 • 2024 J N 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 continued from page 49