Hanging art at the first Three Rivers Arts Festival, 1959, are, from left, Kate Tabor, Sally Childs and Babs Widdoes.

In the past 50 years, the Women's Committee of the Carnegie Museum of Art has raised more than $4 million to purchase more than 75 works of art for the permanent collection.

In the spring of 1959, the committee also started the Three Rivers Arts Festival, and, Babs Widdoes recalled, volunteers did all the work and hung the art.

"It was such a hit, even though some of the art blew away" during the festival's first year, said the Oakmont woman, who was the festival's first co-chair. "After the first year, we had to devise some way so that pavilions wouldn't blow away."

	Eight of the founding members of the Women's Committee are, from left, standing: Ann Wardrop, Lowrie Ebbert, Ann Schroeder, Rita Coney, Audrey Hilliard, the late Minnette Bickel; seated: Poosie Orr, Jean McCullough. Click photo for larger image.

One year, a certain member of the art museum's crew failed to appear to install concrete blocks meant to keep temporary art pavilions from blowing away.

So, Mrs. Widdoes recalled, "I drove a forklift down in Gateway Center. The cement block needed to be delivered to each of the pavilion corners."

As Mrs. Widdoes operated the machinery, "The chairman of the festival [Alex Jackson] came by and said, 'Executive directors don't run forklifts!' ..... "This executive director does whatever she has to do to put on a festival," Mrs. Widdoes replied. "I was rather proud of myself."

From forklift operation to fine art appreciation -- that's the range of these women's capabilities. On Thursday, Gala in the Gallery at Carnegie Museum of Art honors the ebullient, can-do spirit that endures among the more than 200 indefatigable volunteers who make up this committee, including 26 of its original founders. This month, the museum will highlight 30 paintings and 20 objects purchased with women's committee funds.

Richard Armstrong, the museum's Henry J. Heinz II director, said the committee "has very few counterparts left in big-city museums around the country. Most women's committees have evolved into other, more specialized support groups. Here ... every one of them is a utility player. They'll do anything that we ask of them."

Yes, including planting pansies in outdoor courtyards and polishing the silver for the annual spring antiques show, an event held for the last time in 2006. Then there's decorating the four 25-foot-tall Christmas trees that form an annual holiday display and a seasonal reception for children and young adults who are disabled.

Ranny Ferguson, the committee's current president, recalled stepping onto a cherry picker so she could move an ornament six inches to the left.

"They don't let me on the cherry picker anymore," Mrs. Ferguson said. While the museum's marble floors are hard on Mrs. Ferguson's knees, she moves through the building with the speed and grace of a gazelle, pointing out the scaffolding on the Sol LeWitt mural that's being restored and noting that Mr. Armstrong has promised the scaffolding will disappear in time for the golden anniversary gala.

In the late 1950s, the Carnegie was a stiff, rather intimidating place, Mrs. Widdoes recalled, but its director, Gordon Washburn, was a progressive with a deep knowledge of art, especially the contemporary kind. In 1957, Mr. Washburn joined a group of Pittsburgh women on a trip to the St. Louis Museum of Art, which had a women's committee.

That trip ignited the spark of volunteerism here. Committee headquarters is a rectangular room on the museum's second floor. Known as the ladies' withdrawing room, it was once a smoking retreat. The surroundings are lovely, but the plain brown folding tables where the committee meets bespeak a roll-up-your-sleeves attitude. Current members invite and sponsor new members, who range in age from mothers in their 30s with children to women in their 80s.

Among the early pieces of art the committee purchased was Maurice Prendergast's "Picnic," a large canvas painted in 1915 and filled with picnickers. To help raise money for it, a black-and-white sketch of the painting rested on an easel in the museum and a fish bowl was placed in front of it for donations. Children plunked in their spare change, too. As contributions mounted, the sketch was colored in, Mrs. Ferguson said.

Serving on the committee is like an intensive seminar in art, leadership, volunteerism and camaraderie. Plus, promotions happen quickly.

After Brenda Roger of Murrysville taught committee members how to create table decorations inspired by Tiffany lamps for last fall's decorative arts symposium, she landed the task of working on decorations for this week's gala.

Ann Wardrop, an Oakland woman acknowledged by Mrs. Ferguson as "the docent of all docents," is known for leading tours of the museum, her excellent introductions of curators who educate committee members about exhibitions and for organizing the Man and Ideas lecture series.

Edith Fisher, who lives in Squirrel Hill and co-founded the docent program, led the culinary charge when the committee tested recipes with the relentless enthusiasm of Julia Child. Their efforts yielded "Treasures of the Carnegie Cookbook." Published in 1984, the book raised $150,000 and the funds paid for the purchase of a Frank Lloyd Wright drawing.

The committee's Restoration Gala in 1988 helped finance the restoration of the imposing bronze sculptures of Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Bach and Galileo. Known as the "Noble Quartet," these timeless geniuses greet visitors at the museum's Forbes Avenue entrances.

In 2002, another committee donation paid for the purchase of a forklift, which was used to hang a show called "Panopticon," a showcase of 500 museum treasures hung from floor to ceiling and around the room, mimicking the style of a 19th-century salon.

Mrs. Widdoes insists she could still operate that forklift.

"We could have a contest of moving cement blocks on pallets and I could still do it. I know which lever you pull. But I know I wouldn't win," she said, laughing.

"You never know when you wake up in the morning what you're going to learn that day," she added.

A fitting motto for the women's committee.