University of Idaho purchased the former Fourth Street police station to replace the Pritchard art gallery, leaving 414 S Main Street unoccupied. The remaining space is now becoming the Moscow Contemporary.
Roger Rowley, current director for the Moscow Contemporary, was previously the director of the Prichard when the UI occupied the building.
“The Prichard is one of the three best exhibition spaces in the state. (This includes) Boise Art Museum, the Prichard and the Sun Valley Museum of Art,” Rowley said. “With the change in the funding, it is a real loss for the university. Since the space is downtown, not on campus and it was lease.”
UI ended its contract with Rowley back in 2020 due to a lack of funding.
“As the director of the Pritchard, I was trying to find university solutions or hybrid solutions, but ultimately they proved to be complicated or there was not enough of a partnership on the university side,” Rowley said. “So, we ended up going independent. There still might be a relationship between us and the university, but it won’t be as a formal as ite might have been.”
Since then, Rowley and Sonja Foard, assistant director, are now operating the Moscow Contemporary as a nonprofit art gallery.
“Nonprofit art galleries, or nonprofit status, is determined by how well they carry out their education mission,” Rowley said. “We do have education programs, school day K-12 tours, afterschool art programs, a dozen or two dozen university classes come to pass and other programs.”
The main goal, however, is to support the artists and create work, said Rowley.
Rowley also responded to the idea of there being another gallery in the downtown area when the Prichard fully opens.
“There’s been a whole lot of expression of support for us,” said Rowley. “So, within the community, I see more upside than downside to the change. I see very little downside for us. Will we see more visitors, I don’t expect to see a whole lot more, but I don’t expect to see a reduction. I expect to see more broad support financially from the community than what we were getting before.”
Daniel V. Ramirez can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @DVR_Tweets