Displaying items by tag: capital campaign

The Columbus Museum of Art announced that its new wing will be named the Margaret M. Walter Wing in recognition of Robert D. and Margaret “Peggy” Walter’s transformational $10 million donation to the Columbus Museum of Art. The Walters’ donation remains the largest gift in the Museum’s history and became the foundation for the Museum’s Art Matters Endowment and Capital Campaign.

The Walters are long-time supporters of the Museum. Peggy Walter began leading Museum tours as a CMA docent in 1971 and later joined the Museum’s Women’s Board auxiliary. She has also helped guide the Museum as a member of the Board of Trustees since 1994.

A $1 million gift from the Swagelok Foundation and the Fred A. Lennon Charitable Trust has brought the Cleveland Museum of Art's $320 million capital campaign within hailing distance of $300 million.

The museum this week announced the gift from the foundation and trust established by industrialist Fred A. Lennon, founder of Solon-based Swagelok Co.

"It's wonderful," said museum director William Griswold, who noted that the gift would be counted toward the nearly than $11.8 million raised in response to a $19 million challenge gift for the capital campaign announced recently by the museum and Dealer Tire CEO Scott Mueller.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the largest U.S. art institution, named Daniel H. Weiss president as the museum embarks on new initiatives and a long-term capital campaign.

Weiss, 57, an art historian and president of Haverford College, will oversee 1,500 of the 2,200 full and part-time employees in areas including finance, legal affairs and development, the museum said Tuesday in a statement.

He was formally elected by the Met’s board on Tuesday and will assume his new post this summer, after the semester ends at Haverford.

The Cleveland Museum of Art announced a $19 million campaign challenge gift from trustee and Dealer Tire CEO Scott Mueller, which nearly completes the institution's decade-long capital fundraising effort. When combined with Mueller's initial campaign commitment of $1 million, three $1 million restricted gifts, and his annual contributions, at more than $23 million, he ranks among the top donors in the museum's history.  

"Mr. Mueller's historic commitment represents the capstone of our capital campaign. We are simply in awe of his generosity and believe that these gifts further establish his standing among Cleveland's storied philanthropists," said Cleveland Museum of Art director William Griswold. "Mr. Mueller's giving has impacted so many dimensions of the museum's work and reinforces everything we're trying to accomplish."

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum director Anne Hawley, whose 25-year tenure began with a notorious art heist and culminated in a successful $180 million capital campaign, announced Wednesday that she plans to step down at the end of the year.

Hawley said she has been quietly weighing the decision for two years now, as the museum completed fund-raising efforts that included $114 million for the museum’s sleek 2012 expansion, designed by renowned architect Renzo Piano, and an additional $50 million to fortify the museum’s endowment.

The Norton Museum heralded the opening of the public phase of its capital campaign with a presentation Tuesday by Foster + Partners, architects of the plan that’s expected to chart the facility’s growth for the next 10 to 15 years.

The plan will restore the original 1941 Marion Sims Wyeth design’s central east-west axis; reorient the entrance from the south side toward the more heavily traveled Dixie Highway; and add gallery, education and support spaces that will increase the museum’s size from 118,000 square feet to 132,000 square feet.

Emily Rafferty, who has been the president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for more than a decade, announced Thursday that she will be retiring in the spring of 2015.

"With the ebb and flow of projects, this feels like the right time. Nobody takes a decision like this without serious thought," Ms. Rafferty, 65, said.

Her retirement comes as the museum prepares to embark on a series of new initiatives and a related long-term capital campaign. She also cited a number of projects she shepherded that are well underway or nearing completion, such as the Costume Institute, which opened in May, and the plaza renovation project, which is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2014.

Set to open on D.C.’s National Mall in 2016, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture received a major donation toward its current capital campaign on July 4. The Ford Motor Company pledged $1 million to the under-construction museum to go toward future programming.

“We are so pleased that the Ford Motor Company Fund has chosen to join hundreds of donors from across the country to build a groundswell of support for the National Museum of African American History and Culture; we recognize this as a vote of confidence,” Lonnie G. Bunch III, founding director of the museum, said in a release.

On August 18, 2013 the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, VT will open its new Center for Art and Education. Historically a seasonal museum, the Shelburne will stay open year-round after the Center’s inauguration for the first time in the institution’s 66-year history.

The Center for Art and Education, which was designed by the Boston-based architecture firm, Ann Beha Architects, boasts 18,000-square-feet and will allow the Shelburne Museum to expand their exhibition offerings as well as implement new programming. The Center is part of the $14 million capital campaign “The Campaign for Shelburne Museum.” The campaign includes an endowment to maintain the center as well as the installation of a fiber-optic communications network throughout the Shelburne’s site, which spans 45 acres.

Founded by pioneering American folk art collector Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888-1960) in 1947, the Shelburne Museum holds one of the most remarkable and diverse collections of art and Americana. The museum’s 150,000 holdings include Impressionist paintings, folk art, quilts, textiles, decorative arts, furniture, American paintings, and various artifacts dating from the 17^th to 20^th century, which are exhibited in 39 different buildings. Webb collected various 18^th and 19^th century structures including houses, barns, a lighthouse, a jail, and a steamboat to house her collection; 25 of the buildings are historic.