ABOUT

James E. Conley Jr.  (1943-2020)

James E. Conley, Jr., a true Renaissance Man, passed peacefully on March 20, 2020. A newspaperman, business leader, world traveler, philanthropist and art collector, he was born on August 31, 1943 in Madison, Wisconsin to James E. Conley, MD and Lillian Quirk Conley.

Jim will be remembered through his media legacy of weekly and daily newspapers, shoppers, city magazines, trade publications and extensive art collections. James E. Conley Jr., along with the Museum’s first executive director Rhonda R. Smith, founded the Tucson Desert Art Museum, a 501 c 3 nonprofit organization in 2013. The Museum showcases Jim’s premier collection of southwestern art, artifacts and textiles. Jim’s oriental art collection continues to be open to the public through the Heritage Museum of Asian Art in Chicago.

Jim began his career in newspapers in 1967 at the Wall Street Journal and in 1969 purchased his first daily newspaper. Thus, began a lifelong love affair of newspapers… acquiring and building them throughout his life. 

Jim’s philanthropic interests were far reaching and impactful.  He was a founding member of the Beaver Dam Scholarship Foundation, an organization that awards scholarship funds to students to help attend a 4-year college or technical college of their choice.  He supported Clothes 4 Kids, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping children in Wisconsin; served for several years as a member of The Hoover Institute Board of Overseers and provided funding to the Stanford Research Foundation for the translation of the diaries of Chiang Kai-shek; and helped many other nonprofit organizations, enhancing their ability to freely promote public events and exhibitions. He was a member of the Directors Circle of the Tucson Museum of Art and past president of the museum’s Patrons of Western Art group.

As a world traveler and collector, Jim believed that he had a responsibility to share his collections with the public so they would always be available for their education and enjoyment, exhibiting his Oriental collections (Han and Beyond) at the Tucson Museum of Art for six years and at the Milwaukee Art Museum.  His southwestern art collections have been shown at the Denver Art Museum, Tucson Museum of Art and other museums throughout the country.

Jim always encouraged the Tucson Desert Art Museum to actively pursue special exhibitions that address or expose bias in our history, so that we may learn from these difficult periods and never repeat them. His order to “never whitewash history” but to tell the truth about our past will continue to be part of the Museum’s mission. His extensive art and artifacts (collected over the course of his entire lifetime) will continue to be an important source of public and scholarly learning for centuries to come.