New Art School Building to Honor Yale Alumnus

The new home of the Yale School of Art at 1156 Chapel St. will be named Holcombe T. Green Jr. Hall, in honor of the 1961 graduate of Yale College whose generous gift to the University is supporting expansion and renovation of the existing building.

Holcombe T. Green Jr. Hall will be a two-story structure with classrooms, studios, offices, and exhibition and performance space including a “black box” theater.

Yale University President Richard C. Levin announced the project, saying, “Holcombe Green is one of Yale’s most loyal and supportive alumni, with an impressive record of volunteer activity and charitable giving. This generous gift provides a new home for the Yale School of Art as part of our comprehensive revitalization of the arts at Yale. Mr. Green is helping our fine arts program prepare for the 21st century by creating state-of-the-art facilities adequate to our needs. We are truly grateful.”

Green is chief executive officer and director of WestPoint Stevens Inc., headquartered in New York, a textile manufacturing and consumer products firm, and principal of his own venture capital business, Green Capital Investors L.P., in Atlanta, Georgia. He serves on the board of the Yale Art Gallery, The Taft School, Atlanta Botanical Garden, Woodruff Arts Center and other institutions. He recently retired as chairman of HBO & Co., and he has served as a director of numerous other firms.

“As one who admires and supports Yale’s distinctive art collections and pioneering art education programs, I am pleased that the University is embarking on this initiative to expand and improve its physical plant,” Green said. “I am delighted to be involved in this effort to ensure that Yale’s world-class School of Art receives the up-to-date studio, teaching and administrative spaces it deserves.”

He and his wife, the former Nancy Reade Hall, have been frequent contributors to Yale. The Greens made significant gifts in recent years to renovate and name the Saybrook College Dining Hall and to endow the Holcombe T. Green Curatorship of American Painting and Sculpture at the Yale Art Gallery in memory of Mr. Green’s father.

Green’s alumni activities have included membership on the Yale Development Board, 1989-91, and the Reunion Gift Committee for his class’s 25th reunion in 1986. He sat on the National Executive Committee of The Yale Campaign, which raised more than $1.7 billion from 1992 to 1997, and also served The Campaign in a senior volunteer capacity as co-chair for the eastern region.

Prior to college, he attended The Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut. While at Yale, as a resident of Saybrook College, he majored in English and played on the golf team. He received his LL.B. degree from the University of Virginia in 1967.

The site of the new School of Art was acquired by Yale in December 1996. With a facade designed by Louis I. Kahn, the building was erected in 1951 as the New Haven Jewish Community Center. The office of Deborah Berke Architect has been selected to head the renovation project, which is expected to be completed by the spring of 2000.

Approximately 120 graduate students, 90 faculty and staff and 350 undergraduate students who take studio art classes each semester will use the facility. The School of Art is currently located in Yale’s Art and Architecture Building at the corner of Chapel and York streets.