Art for Her Alma Mater

Barbara Walters will cut the ribbon at an eponymous art gallery on Friday night at her alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College, in Bronxville, N.Y.

Ms. Walters donated $1 million to build the Monika A. and Charles A. Heimbold Jr. Visual Arts Center, which will house the new gallery.

"The gallery is the public side of the arts building. She's a public person," said the president of Sarah Lawrence, Michelle Myers. "She's a wonderful representative of what Sarah Lawrence is about."

Ms. Walters will attend a gala Friday night to mark the opening of the building and the 75th anniversary of the school's founding.

The inaugural exhibit at the new Barbara Walters Gallery will feature sculptures and paintings produced by artists who have taught at the school. The show will feature three sculptures by David Smith and two paintings by Richard Poussette-Dart, among others.

A Sarah Lawrence alumna curated the show: the curator of Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Nancy Spector.

"It was a pleasure," Ms. Spector said. "I was very inspired by Sarah Lawrence College, very grateful. I wouldn't be where I am today if not for a bunch of very influential and supportive professors."

The Visual Arts Center was designed to be environmentally friendly. Its facade is made from wood from local trees and from rock unearthed during the excavation. The building will be heated by warm water springs pumped up from deep under the ground. Ms. Myers believes the efficiencies will help the college save money in the long run.

The building will also allow the college to consolidate its art programs under a single roof. Previously, each course of study - painting, sculpture, and film, to name a few - had its own space on campus. The center will allow students to circulate through the building and see what their peers are working on. To Ms. Myers, this will more accurately reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the art world.

"We want to teach the arts in the way the arts are made," Ms. Myers said.