Displaying items by tag: endowment

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has received an $8 million donation to endow the position of the museum's director and president.

The gift from the Duncan and Nivin MacMillan Foundation was given in honor of the museum's 100th anniversary in 2015. Kaywin Feldman has led the museum since 2008 and will be the first person to hold the newly endowed position.

Christmas came early for the Woodruff Arts Center, which announced Friday morning that it has received a $38 million grant from the Woodruff Foundation.

The largest gift in the Midtown art center’s 46-year history includes $25 million in endowment matching funds — including support for full-time musician positions with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra — and $13 million for capital improvements. Those capital funds, which do not require a match, will support a complete renovation of Alliance Theatre performance, education and public spaces.

The renovation will be so major for the Alliance spaces in the Memorial Arts Building, which have not significantly changed since the building opened in 1968, that the theater will have to secure a temporary home for at least one full season.

The director of the Ashmolean Museum, Dr. Alexander Sturgis, has announced that an anonymous UK benefactor has pledged a seven-figure sum of money to match donations to The Ashmolean Fund; a newly established fund to secure the future of Britain’s oldest museum - the news of this donation was released at a press conference in London.

The Ashmolean Fund plans to raise an endowment for the Museum of £50 million. The sum of money will provide at least £2 million annually, which is nearly 20% of its current operating budget, this is designed to support the Ashmolean in perpetuity.

The High Museum of Art announced today that Michael E. Shapiro, the Museum’s Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr. Director since 2000, will leave the position next year, after 15 years as director. Shapiro has been part of the High’s leadership team for two decades, during which he oversaw unprecedented growth of the Museum’s collections, endowment, and audiences, as well as the completion of a 177,000-square-foot, three-building expansion. Shapiro’s last day as director will be July 31, 2015.

“It has been a privilege to be at the helm of the High for the past 15 years, and to help shape the vision and future of Atlanta’s art museum,” said Shapiro.

Douglas Hyland, who has led the New Britain Museum of American Art through two major expansions, tripled its collections and more than doubled its endowment, will retire as the museum's director after its new addition is complete next fall.

Hyland, 65, announced his decision Wednesday at a meeting of the museum's board of trustees.

"Everything I envisioned for this museum has been accomplished," Hyland said. "The collections have grown, the attendance is at 100,000. This is the best year of our history."

A family with extensive ties to Duke University has committed $3 million to Duke in support of athletics and the Nasher Museum of Art, President Richard H. Brodhead announced Tuesday.

Gary L. Wilson, a former Duke trustee, and his son, Derek, who serves on the Nasher’s board of advisors, are providing $2 million to enhance and support athletic facilities and $1 million to fund an endowment for the museum and its collection.

The Peabody Essex Museum announced a $5 million pledge Thursday from the Lynch Foundation, adding to the museum’s already impressive endowment.

The money will be used to establish continuity for the museum’s changing exhibition program, featuring exhibits like the recently opened Alexander Calder display, “Calder and Abstraction: From Avant Garde to Icon.”

The Lynch Foundation, formed by Marblehead’s Carolyn and Peter Lynch in 1988, focuses on health care, education, museums and Roman Catholic religious institutions. Carolyn Lynch has sat on the PEM board for nearly two decades; she is president and chairwoman of the Lynch Foundation.

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum announced this week that it is selling three works by the artist, including one of her iconic flower paintings that is estimated to bring between $10 million and $15 million at auction.

Museum Director Robert Kret said the board’s decision to sell the pieces was “not taken lightly” but will allow the Santa Fe museum to build its endowment fund and compete in the global market for other works by O’Keeffe to fill gaps in its own collection.

Brooklyn Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman announced yesterday at the fall meeting of the Board of Trustees that he will retire in mid-2015.

Lehman, who turned 70 in July, joined the Brooklyn Museum as its director in September 1997.

Under his leadership, the Brooklyn Museum- one of the oldest and largest museums in the country- has undergone nearly two decades of sustained growth, more than doubling its audience and its endowment, refocusing attention on the visitor, expanding and significantly enhancing its landmark building, re-envisioning and re-installing much of its permanent collection, developing a dynamic exhibition program for its Brooklyn site as well as for its national traveling exhibitions, pioneering new technology and, overall, renewing the commitment of a world-renowned institution to its metropolitan area community of artists, families and young people.

The High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, has received a $2.5 million gift from local philanthropist Dan Boone and his late wife Merrie Boone. The generous donation will support and expand the museum’s folk and self-taught art initiatives, including the endowment of a permanent, full-time curatorial position to lead the department. With the addition of the Merrie and Dan Boone Curator of Folk and Self-Taught Art, all seven of the High’s collecting departments will have a full-time endowed curatorial position.

The Boones’ gift will enable the continued growth of the museum’s exhibition program, conservation efforts, and its folk and self-taught art collection, which is considered one of the finest of its kind.