Obituary of Professor Emeritus Sid White

Professor Sid White Sid White, Professor Emeritus at The Evergreen State College, died on January 21, 2008 in Olympia. Professor White, formerly a member of the Art Department at Oregon State University, came to Olympia in 1970 to serve as a member of The Evergreen State College Planning Faculty. During his twenty-year tenure at Evergreen he was comitted to the goal of teaching interdisciplinary studies while also offering instruction in Multimedia, Arts Management and Exhibition Design, and Recent Art History. Thus, collaborating with faculty ranging from physics to dance, theater, literature and Native American studies, he taught in Space, Time and Form: Common Problems in Art and Science, Collaborative Arts Consortium, and Art and Culture. He established the College exhibition program in 1970-71, and served as director of Evergreen Galleries between 1979 and 1989. The 150 exhibits that he organized brought concern for cultural diversity to the campus. Between 1981 and 1990 he also directed Exhibit Touring Services (ETS), an Evergreen-based program circulating arts and humanities exhibits to a consortium of museums and galleries throughout the state of Washington. White arranged 50 touring exhibits seen by some 1.1 million people. A third of his work dealt with art by Northwest Native Americans. Chicano and Latino Artists in The Pacific Northwest and Peoples of Washington, a travelling exhibition celebrating cultural diversity, are among a series of exhibitions curated and toured by Professor White during the 1980s. A 1989 Washington State Centennial project, Peoples of Washington, was produced in both exhibit and book format. He received the Governor's Writers Award in 1991 in recognition of his contributions as senior editor of this publication. His work was recognized locally, statewide and across the nation. Sid White was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1924 and lived in Moscow, Russia between 1931 and 1936. During WW II he was stationed in India for two years working as a draftsman-illustrator-designer. Following the war he studied painting at the Wellfleet (Massachusetts) School of Art, and then, in 1951, received his B.A. (with Honors and Distinction) in Art Education, with a minor in Philosophy, at the University of New Mexico. He received his M.A. in Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin in 1952 after which he was awarded a University Fellowship, returning to the University of New Mexico to work toward a doctorate in American Studies. Professor White’s 37 year-long richly varied teaching career started in 1953 when he was a high school teacher in Raton, New Mexico, later teaching in Menlo Park, California. His teaching career on the college and university level started in 1956 when he was invited to serve as a visiting Assistant Professor of Art Education at the University of Oregon. Two years later, in 1958, he was invited to join the Art Department faculty at Oregon State University. There he taught a variety of arts and humanities courses while focusing on such offerings as Art in the Elementary School, Composition and Visual Theory, and Art and Society. From 1964 to 1966 Professor White was on leave from the OSU Art Department serving as Director in Residence of the Oregon State System of Higher Education Italian Studies Center in Pavia, Italy. Living in Italy and traveling around Europe during this two year period provided him with opportunities to view culturally expressive works of art while also experiencing every day life in a cultural context. These experiences closely connected to his earlier exposure to different cultural realities while living in Russia, India, and various parts of the United States; they also contributed to Professor White’s life-long interst in the phenomenon of cultural diversity with the result that, during the second decade of his tenure at Evergreen, his focus was on producing a series of exhibitions and related publications organized around the themes of Art as Cultural Expression and Cultural Diversity in Washington State’s past, present and future. Mr. White had an exuberance for life. He was a complex thinker and visual/multi-media designer. He had a gift for friendship with a wide range of people and warmly embraced them. He was a gifted teacher who remained in touch with many devoted former students. Mr. White documented the full spectrum of his interests and accomplishments, which will be made available to the public as an archive at The Evergreen State College Library. Professor White is survived by his wife, Pat Matheny-White, former wife Molly Finn White, a son, Steven White, two daughters, Sally Tang and Lucy White, a brother, Maurie White, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. A private gathering for close friends and family will be held at the White home with a public memorial to be held later in the summer. Memorial contributions may be made in Sid's name to the Capitol Land Trust, 209 4th Ave., Olympia, WA 98501.