By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — Several works of art representing a broad range of media — from watercolors to photographs to illustrations — have been donated to the school district’s Permanent Art Collection by the Westport Public Art Collection Committee.

The Board of Education unanimously accepted the artwork last week and also renewed the committee as the agent and steward of the school system’s extensive art collection for five years retroactive to July 1, 2024.

There are more than 2,000 works of art in the collection that on a rotating basis are on display in the district’s eight schools as well as municipal buildings.

The committee, a subcommittee of Westport Arts Advisory Committee, was managed this year by Co-Chairs Anne Boberski and Ive Covaci, who are responsible for the daily operations of WestPAC site reps and the art on location.

They told the board the new works are exciting additions to the collection. Included are:

• Portrait of Howard Munce by artist Victor Dowd. The piece was donated by Kathleen Motes Bennewitz. Munce, who died in 2016 at the age of 101, was a decades-ling member of the WestPAC committee.

• The Front Page Project: The New York Times May 8, 1996, by Nancy Chunn. Donor was Ann Sheffer. Chunn created 366 front pages of the New York Times from 1996 on which she made additions, comments and eradications using a variety of drawing styles.

• Avulsion, by Karyn Olivier, also donated by Ann Sheffer. Olivier, a native of Trinidad and Tobago. is a contemporary artist.

• Westport wharf scene, by Susan Rabinowitz Malloy and donated by Ann Sheffer. Malloy is a Westport artist and philanthropist.

• Floral Study, by Barbara Rothenberg, donated by Westport Book Ventures. Rothenberg was an award-winning painter and teacher of studio art and art history. This pastel was a gift to her friends Neil and Perry Adato. Perry Adato lived in Westport until her death in 2018.

• A group of three abstract oils on canvas, entitled: Summer Wham Bam, Seaside Kitten Kaboom and Underbelly, by local artist Liz Leggett. A contemporary painter and independent curator, Leggett’s works have been exhibited nationally and internationally.

• Rower, by James Sharpe, donated by Jay Cimak of Trumbull. Sharpe was an American postwar and contemporary artist, native to Texas. During the 1970s, he did over two dozen covers for TV Guide, two for Newsweek and others. He has also designed US Postal Service stamps.

In addition to hanging in school hallways, classrooms, offices and conference rooms, the art in the collection is also sometimes used by teachers in lessons.

Board Chair Lee Goldstein said she encourages everyone in the schools to check out the artwork.

“It’s a treasure,” Goldstein said. “I 100 percent support this.” As a member of the the Westport Arts Advisory Committee, however, Goldstein abstained from voting.

“The collection is amazing,” agreed board member Jill Dillon, who did vote. “We are so lucky to have it.”

Freelance writer Linda Conner Lambeck, a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications, is a member of the Education Writers Association.