Stanford will construct a new building for its Art and Art History Department, uniting the department under one roof, thanks to more than $200 million in gifts earmarked for arts education at the university.

A new building will be constructed next to the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, at the site of a now defunct anatomy lab. The building will be named in honor of longtime Stanford supporters Dedee and Burt McMurty, a former chairman of the Board of Trustees, who gave $30 million for the effort.

The current Cummings Art Building is cramped for space and doesn't house all the department, at the same time that student interest in studio art courses has increased.

"Great sparks happen when people come together in one place," Kristine Samuelson, chair of the Department of Art and Art History, said. "This happens far less because of our current space situation."

The Cummings Art Building, located between Hoover Tower and the Main Quad, will be taken over by the Hoover Institution once the new building is finished. Planning for it has just begun.

The more than $200 million in gifts for the arts at Stanford came through the Arts Initiative, part of the five-year Stanford Challenge which is also earmarking funds for major initiatives in the environment, human health, international affairs, K-12 education and graduate and undergraduate education.

"There is a tremendous amount of artistic energy at Stanford," Leslie Hume, another donor and chair of the Board of Trustees, said. "We want to involve a wider range of students, whether they are being introduced to the arts as audience members or developing their own creative powers."

— Don Kazak