Photo by Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

From left, Warner Dalhouse, head of the museum's development committee; Georganne Bingham, the museum's executive director; Victor Giovanetti, CEO of Lewis-Gale Medical Center; and Jenny Taubman of the museum’s capital campaign committee, tour the museum, which will be named after Nicholas and Jenny Taubman.

Message board

• Talk about the museum's new name

Photo gallery

• The new Art Museum under construction

The Art Museum of Western Virginia will be renamed for its biggest donors, Nicholas and Jenny Taubman, the museum announced Wednesday.

In a move that surprised virtually no one, the museum revealed that it will become the Taubman Museum of Art when its new $66 million home opens in downtown Roanoke this November.

The Taubmans have pledged $15.25 million to the project over several years. Nicholas Taubman, currently U.S. ambassador to Romania, was formerly chairman and chief executive of Advance Auto Parts. His wife is chairwoman of the museum's capital campaign committee.

"The name change reflects the extraordinary gift that Ambassador and Mrs. Taubman have made to the art museum," said Ed Murphy, museum board president, in a prepared statement. "With their exemplary contribution ... the Taubmans will be long remembered for their dedication to Western Virginia."

Jenny Taubman was present for Wednesday's announcement, held in a crowded gallery in the back of the museum's current cramped quarters at Center in the Square. Nicholas Taubman could not attend.

"I'm a little bit taken aback," she told the overflow crowd, pressed between walls of valuable paintings by the likes of John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer and Childe Hassam, many of them purchased in recent years by another major museum donor, the Horace G. Fralin Charitable Trust.

Jenny Taubman thanked those who have been supporters of the project "through thick and thin. And trust me, there were many thin times."

Jenny Taubman was born in Bulgaria and served in the Israeli army before becoming a U.S. citizen in 1966. After Wednesday's event, she said that she and her husband never intended to be the museum's largest donors.

"I wanted it [the new building] to happen. I didn't care who footed the bill," she said. But Taubman noted that the now-$66 million project has nearly doubled in price over time. The museum has raised $52 million so far, including the Taubmans' gift.

"It became necessary for someone to come up with additional funds to make this happen," she said. "It just so happened it was us. Because I couldn't get anybody else to give it except for Nick."

Speakers including museum Executive Director Georganne Bingham, U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke County, and Roanoke Mayor Nelson Harris helped celebrate the day, heaping compliments on the Taubmans and in some cases avowing support for the new building's controversial design by Randall Stout. It has been called everything from "beautiful" to "the wreck of the Flying Nun."

Harris noted the new museum is already drawing people to downtown. "They're curious. They're inspired ... I think that the architecture of the museum is exactly right."

Jenny Taubman alluded to controversy over the design as well. "There were many people dubious about the architecture," she told the crowded gallery, "but can anyone deny that when you drive down Williamson Road and the museum rises out of the ground, it is like the most beautiful flower you have ever seen?"

This will be the third name for the museum, which began life more than half a century ago as the Roanoke Fine Arts Center. The new name casts into shadow, at least for the moment, the efforts of other major donors, such as the Fralin Trust. But not to worry, museum leaders said. "We do things right around here," Bingham said.

The hunt for funds continues. The museum also announced Wednesday that it has received a $250,000 gift from the Dominion Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Dominion, an energy producer. The Taubmans also have hinted that they might donate more.