ACM facilitated the distribution of nearly 200 works by Indigenous artists, which will be used in the study and research of Inuit culture at Macalester and St. Olaf Colleges in memory of donor Robert C. Leestma. Photo by Daniel Seo (Macalester College 2025)
As Kalei Ganser ‘25 helped to unbox, document, and research dozens of examples of Inuit art added to the collection of the Law Warschaw Gallery at Macalester College, excitement grew in her about how future students will interact with and learn from the objects.
“I’m just amazed at the amount of things that we have,” Ganser said in February 2025 while the museum studies major and anthropology minor carefully worked along college staff members to catalogue lithographs, etchings, stencils, and other pieces that dramatically expanded Macalester’s collection of works by Indigenous artists.
The examples of Indigenous culture production Ganser assisted in processing had been entrusted to the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) by the estate of Robert C. Leestma. During his lifetime, Leestma accumulated an impressive collection of nearly 200 prints, sculptures, and other creations by Inuit artists. Most were from Kinngait (formerly known as Cape Dorset), in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut in northern Canada. The vast Arctic region is famous for Indigenous printmaking, drawing, and carving.
Leestma’s estate contained a bequest, which was a surprise to the ACM, with the expectation that the collection be used to support the study and research of Inuit culture. Previously, ACM had no formal relationship with Leestma, an army veteran and retired federal civil servant, who held a lifelong love of the outdoors and a profound appreciation for the value of education. Leestma and his wife, Margaret, led one of the first Peace Corps missions to Southeast Asia during the Kennedy Administration.
After more than a year of careful and collaborative planning, ACM shared the Leestma collection with Macalester and St. Olaf College. The collection will enhance the ACM member colleges’ efforts to expand Indigenous art and culture into campus learning and exhibitions.
Jane Becker Nelson, the director and curator of St. Olaf’s Flaten Art Museum, expressed deep gratitude for the more than 60 prints and two soapstone sculptures acquired through the bequest. She praised their visual appeal, narrative qualities, and mix of representational and abstract styles that complement existing examples in the St. Olaf collection.
“These works could do a lot to increase the representation of a broader range of identities through the artwork on our campus,” Becker Nelson said, adding that the Leestma collection will greatly support faculty members’ goals to incorporate object-based learning into coursework and assignments.
The director and curator of Macalester’s Law Warschaw Gallery, Heather Everhart, said Macalester’s share of nearly 130 pieces from The Associated Colleges of The Midwest Robert C. Leestma Collection are the college’s first Inuit holdings.
“We anticipate that this will be a collection that students will be able to interact with and study,” Everhart said. “This is an unbelievable boost to the collection in such a real way. It’s such a shocking delight, too.”
Everhart noted the unexpected donation will directly support the Macalester Native and Indigenous Initiative, an effort dedicated to engagement with and scholarship around Indigenous people, culture and history. The curator said she hopes to invite Inuit artists living in the Twin Cities region to engage with the collection while working with art history and fine arts students from Macalester.
The works housed at St. Olaf will tell the Kinngait story while the works at Macalester will represent the broader pan-Arctic region, Becker Nelson and Everhart explained.
“I’m so thrilled that ACM is making it possible for us to acquire the work with Macalester and I’m also really glad that Macalester shares this spirit of partnership,” Becker Nelson said, adding that she views the collaboration with her ACM colleague as doubling the impact of the Leestma collection, rather than dividing its contents. “We’re so close [geographically], we can do so much together.”
ACM President Lisa Jasinski took a hands-on approach, working with colleagues at St. Olaf and Macalester to design a plan that guarantees the objects entrusted to ACM by the Leestma family are properly cared for and will honor the benefactor’s wishes.
“ACM was touched by Mr. Leestma’s generosity and honored by the faith he placed in our consortium to ensure that the collection he lovingly amassed will serve generations of liberal arts students and scholars who will actively engage with these rich examples of Inuit culture,” Jasinski said.
The ACM president went on to say the surprise bequest presented her team with a fresh challenge. While far different than the nonprofit organization’s day-to-day programming to provide leadership development, support cross-campus collaboration, and offer valuable professional growth opportunities for ACM faculty and staff, Jasinski said handling the estate’s donation demonstrated ACM’s ability to support member colleges in their broader missions to celebrate world cultures and produce new knowledge through research.
As for Ganser, the now-graduate of Macalester who self-designed her museum studies major, the opportunity to support ACM’s work to inventory and distribute pieces from the Leestma collection was also personal. She is Kānaka Maoli and CHamoru, from the Romeo and Jeje clans of Guåhan (Guam). Ganser said Indigenous communities like hers have long had uneasy relationships with museums due to many institutions’ centuries-old histories of colonialism that often saw Indigenous culture plundered or exploited.
“It really urged me to get into this work and to make it better,” Ganser said, adding that the Inuit art from the Leestma collection will leave a legacy of respectful and scholarly appreciation in academic settings. “To me, museums are such an incredible form of accessible education and I really want to step that up.”
Visitors to the ACM Offices in Chicago are encouraged to view the print from the collection, “Vision of Birds” by artist Mayoreak Ashoona.
To read more about the Associated Colleges of The Midwest Robert C. Leestma Collection, visit the website of Macalester Today and St. Olaf College magazine.
