A Small Museum Climbs onto the Global Stage

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The Seattle Art Museum is having a pretty heady year. Not only did SAM just open its newly remodeled downtown space, expanded by some 70 percent - thanks to a creative partnership with Washington Mutual Bank - it broke the traditional notion of a unified campus by adding the outdoor Olympic Sculpture Park down on the waterfront. It also plans a $4 million remodel for the edifice showcasing its renowned Asian Art collection next year.

All of this would have been ambitious enough for a relatively small, regional museum preparing to mark a modest 75th anniversary in 2008.

But, the piece de resistance in SAM's annus "terrificus" is the March gift announcement: nearly …