Forms part of the Marian Wood Kolisch Oral History Collection.
Collection is open for research.
Gift of Leslie Kolisch, May 2011 (Lib. Acc. 27347).
Arlene R. Schnitzer, nee Director, was born in Salem, Oregon, in 1929, and grew up in Portland. She married Harold J. Schnitzer in 1949, and they later had one child, Jordan Schnitzer. In 1958, she attended the Museum Art School (now the Pacific Northwest College of Art), and in 1961, she co-founded the Fountain Gallery of Art in downtown Portland. The gallery featured work from Pacific Northwest artists. Arlene and Harold Schnitzer funded public artworks in Portland, donated much of their personal art collection to the Portland Art Museum, and donated funds to many organizations, including Oregon Health & Science University and Oregon Public Broadcasting. Arlene Schnitzer died in 2020.
Sources: Vital records on Ancestry.com; information provided by Schnitzer in her interview; "Arlene Schnitzer, Oregon Philanthropist And Art Collector, Dies At 91," by Amelia Templeton and Julie Sabatier, Oregon Public Broadcasting, April 4, 2020 (accessed July 8, 2024),
Forms part of the Marian Wood Kolisch Oral History Collection.
Oral history interview with Arlene Schnitzer, by Marian W. Kolisch, SR 11019, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
This oral history interview with Arlene Schnitzer was conducted by Oregon photographer Marian W. Kolisch at Schnitzer's office in Portland, Oregon, on October 20, 1978. The interview was part of a series conducted by Kolisch to accompany portraits of Oregon artists, businesspeople, and politicians. A transcript is available in addition to the audio recording of the interview.
In this interview, Schnitzer discusses how taking art classes at the Art Museum School (now the Pacific Northwest College of Art) sparked her interest in art, and shares her reasons for quitting a few years later. She talks about her personality and about pursuing a career in the field of art after she married. She discusses opening the Fountain Gallery of Art in downtown Portland to provide a place to exhibit the work of her classmates, and talks about the origins of the gallery's name. She speaks at length about the obstacles she faced in opening her gallery, and about artists whose artwork the gallery featured. She also discusses experiencing antisemitism. She shares her thoughts about the future of the art community in Portland, and about the aesthetic taste of the average American. She describes the buildings the Fountain Gallery was housed in, talks about a 1977 fire in downtown Portland that killed several people and damaged the gallery, and discusses reopening the gallery a little over a month later. She talks about her philanthropic activity in Portland, including co-founding the Albina Arts Center, serving on the board of the Museum of Arts and Crafts, and donating funds for the renovation of the Portland Center for the Performing Arts, which was later renamed the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. She closes the interview by discussing the philanthropic activities of her husband, Harold Schnitzer.
Copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society. Use is allowed according to the following statement: Creative Commons - BY-NC-SA,