Pendleton Round-Up brings thousands of visitors - and art - to eastern Oregon

Never be afraid to send an email.

Roberta Lavadour, Executive Director at the Pendleton Center for the Arts in Pendleton, OR, wasn’t. 

She was on the Jordan D. Schnitzer Family Foundation’s email list to receive updates regarding news and events along with, presumably, hundreds of others. 

“After viewing one in 2016, I typed up a request for information on how we could start a conversation about borrowing prints,” Lavadour remembers. “I hit ‘reply’ thinking it would land in the inbox of a communications staffer. Less than two minutes later our phone rang and it was Jordan thanking me for reaching out.”

Hung Liu ‘Official Portraits Citizen,’ 2006. Color lithograph with collage. From the Jordan D. Schnitzer Family Foundation collection

Jordan Schnitzer, namesake of the Foundation. One of the most prominent and influential art collectors in the world. Billionaire West Coast real estate developer. 

“Jordan has a special relationship with Pendleton, so that helped us get our foot in the door,” Lavadour said.

“Growing up in Portland, Oregon, I was always disturbed about the urban-rural split in our state,” Schnitzer said. “As a young adult, I was fortunate to be a guest at the Pendleton Round-Up. I fell in love with the Round-Up and Pendleton, Oregon!”

The Pendleton Round-Up has been taking place annually since 1910. It’s the biggest week of the year in the small town 200 miles east of Portland. What started as a rodeo has expanded to include concerts, parades, a pageant, a tipi village – the largest annual Native encampment in North America – and live stage show.

“I've been going to the Pendleton Round-Up for 43 years. I became a major Round-Up sponsor 27 years ago when we started the scholarship fund for the Pendleton Round-Up Court and Happy Canyon Indian Princesses,” Schnitzer said. “We have helped over 170 of these amazing women go to college. Later, when we expanded our CommuniCARE program, now called Schnitzer Cares, which helps high school students learn about nonprofit needs in their community, I immediately wanted to involve the Nixya'awii School on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation as well as Pendleton and Hermiston high schools. Pendleton means a lot to me.”

Seventeen thousand people live in Pendleton; an additional 60,000 visit during Round-Up week.

“I always love the Cowboy Breakfast where VFW members flip pancakes and ham slices, kids from the local sports teams bus your table, (an) octogenarian band plays traditional western standards, and someone on a hand-held microphone calls out raffle ticket numbers for prizes like oil changes,” Lavadour said of her Round-Up highlight.

The Pendleton Round-Up runs September 11th through the 14th, 2024.

Artist Jacob Hashimoto talks to visitors at the Pendleton Center for the Arts about his work in the exhibition “Contemporary Asian and Asian American Art From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer

Schnitzer Family Foundation artwork in Pendleton

Through his Jordan D. Schnitzer Family Foundation, Schnitzer partners with the Pendleton Center for the Arts on an annual exhibition pulled from his collection coinciding with the Round-Up. The seventh iteration takes place this fall during “Contemporary Asian and Asian American Art: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.” 

Twenty-three works from seven artists having roots in China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Americas are on view displaying a range of printmaking and papermaking techniques, including lithography, copperplate etching, chronogenic printing, collage, archival inkjet, pulp painting, and Mixographia®.

“Each of these pieces elicited gasps when we unpacked them,” Lavadour said. “They are simply beautiful objects. Additionally, the diverse assortment of printmaking methods is remarkable.”

Schnitzer began collecting contemporary prints and multiples in 1988 and today is North America’s largest print collector. His Foundation’s collection consists of more than 22,000 works of art including a wide variety of prints, sculptures, paintings, glass, and mixed media works. The collection goes deep with many of the biggest names in modern and contemporary art: Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Mickalene Thomas, Hank Willis Thomas, David Hockney. 

Bringing this caliber of artwork to Pendleton makes for a unique opportunity and an introduction.

“A lot of kids growing up in a rural community don’t get to travel and have little to no experience being in a formal gallery or museum. That can lead to those spaces feeling intimidating when they become adults,” Lavadour explains. “Being welcomed into our building and learning that these spaces and the work they contain are for them can be transformational.”

Previous exhibitions highlighted contemporary art icons Chuck Close, Louise Bourgeois, Ellsworth Kelly, Kara Walker, Enrique Chagoya, and Leonardo Drew.

“We have been very mindful to feature a diverse mix of art and artists in the series,” Lavadour added. “For kids (and adults) living in a rural area, especially in Oregon, there can be few places where people of color are represented in leadership roles. To see artists like Kara Walker, Leonardo Drew, Enrique Chagoya, or Jacob Hashimoto et. al. held up as some of the finest contemporary artists working today can help them feel that they can achieve big things too.”

Admission to the Pendelton Center for the Arts is free. “Contemporary Asian and Asian American Art” can be seen through October 26, 2024.

The Foundation has organized over 180 exhibitions from its collection and additionally loaned thousands of artworks to over 120 museums at no cost to the institutions.

Visitors to the Pendleton Center for the Arts enjoying “Contemporary Asian and Asian American Art From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.”

Visiting Pendleton

Schnitzer’s connection to the Pendleton Center for the Arts dates to its formation. His foundation made a contribution when the institution was being converted from the Pendleton Carnegie Library.

“I was fortunate to grow up under my late mother Arlene Schnitzer's tutelage when she went to the Portland Art Museum Art School and opened the Fountain Gallery of Art. For me, waking up without art around me would be like waking up without the sun,” Jordan Schnitzer said.

“Our collaboration garners a lot of civic pride,” Lavadour said. “Community members see our JSFF exhibitions as another example of how the art and culture community as a whole exceeds expectations.”

Schnitzer was also friendly with artist James Lavadour, Roberta Lavadour’s ex-husband. James Lavadour (Walla Walla) grew up on the Umatilla Reservation, near Pendleton. He co-founded the Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts located on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

Tamástslikt is also located on the Reservation in Pendleton. It’s the only museum on the Oregon Trail telling the story of western expansionism from a tribal point of view.

“Pendleton is at once exactly what you expect and very different from what you expect,” Roberta Lavadour said. “The Pendleton Round-Up, Pendleton Woolen Mills, and Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation are clearly visible. There is a community of western maker spaces in the core of downtown crafting custom boots, hats, shirts, and décor. Hamley & Co. is a western icon.”

The town also boasts a children’s museum, a history and heritage museum, a community theater organization, a symphony, and a welcoming attitude.

“Hospitality is the distinguishing characteristic of Pendleton – that’s one of the things that drew Jordan into the community many years ago,” Lavadour adds. “We are so friendly we will drive you a little nuts sometimes.”