The Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History will be inaugurated on October 29 with a gathering of prominent art historians and museum leadership from around the world. The Institute has been founded through a $17 million gift from longtime patron of the arts Edith O’Donnell to the University of Texas at Dallas, and will be one of the preeminent centers for art history research and training in the U.S., alongside the J. Paul Getty Museum; the Clark Art Institute; the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU; and the National Gallery of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.

Through its partnership with the Dallas Museum of Art, the Institute will be the first degree-granting program in the U.S. that incorporates both an institute and a museum, and is the first such program that is a collaboration between a public university and a public museum.