The Pollock-Krasner Foundation
Jackson Pollock was one of the most significant painters of the twentieth-century, but his family’s legacy goes far beyond his paintings. By the early 1980s, with Pollock long dead and Read more…
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Moses Asch and American Folk Music
Moses Asch originally co-founded Folkways Records in 1948 in an ambitious attempt to record and document “the entire world of sound.” At the time, this meant everything from music of Read more…
National Museum of Women in the Arts
On a trip to Europe, Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay fell in love with some paintings by seventeenth-century Flemish artist Clara Peeters. When they returned home, they were disappointed to find Read more…
A New Generation Discovers Jazz at Lincoln Center
Many of the performing-arts organizations based in New York City’s philanthropically supported Lincoln Center perform outside the metropolitan area during the summer. To help fill the gap in concerts, Lincoln Read more…
Carnegie Hall is Rescued, and Reoriented
Carnegie Hall is an American treasure—its history, its architecture, and its magnificent acoustics make it the gold standard for American music halls even a century and a quarter after its Read more…
$1 Billion Annenberg Art Collection Donated to the Metropolitan Museum
Walter Annenberg spent his life building a media empire, launching Seventeen and TV Guide magazines, and starting or buying one television station or cable company after another. By the mid-twentieth Read more…
Saving the Joffrey Ballet
When philanthropist Patricia Kennedy invited rock artist Prince to join her at the Joffrey Ballet in 1991, she didn’t think the shy star would say yes. Prince was renting a Read more…
Magic of Music Program
Creed Black was concerned. President of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which conducts arts philanthropy in the 26 cities in which the Knight brothers owned newspapers, Black Read more…
Preservation of Copland House
Aaron Copland meant a lot to a lot of people. So it’s no surprise that when he died in 1990 the preservationists got to work. One of America’s most distinctive Read more…
Rea and Lela Axline
Rea Axline had southern California written all over him. He had graduated from Caltech in 1931, and then figured out how to coat metal alloys onto other metal objects—reaping a Read more…
BYU Center for Animation
Ira Fulton’s mother taught him to give generously from the time he was a child in Arizona. Her hamburger stand never turned anyone away, even if customers couldn’t pay. “They’re Read more…
Doris Duke Foundation Invests in New Artists
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has been a groundbreaker in the growing field of direct philanthropic support to artists—ranging from open-ended gifts to commissioning of specific works. Founded in 1996 Read more…
Ruth Lilly, Patroness of Poetry
Ruth Lilly was a poet herself. She had grown up wealthy, but that wasn’t an advantage as she tried to express herself through verse. For years she sent samples to Read more…
An Art Donation Cubed
Leonard Lauder, for many years CEO of the cosmetics firm Estée Lauder that was founded by his parents, became a disciplined and tightly focused collector of art as his wealth Read more…
New Institutes for Brain Science
In recent years, brain research has been a rising interest among philanthropists. For instance, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen donated $200 million in 2003 to establish a Seattle-based nonprofit aimed at Read more…
$350 Million for a City Park in Tulsa
Tulsa, Oklahoma, offers a good example of how local philanthropy enriches American lives. This small city has generous individual donors and independent foundations along with a community foundation endowed with Read more…
Archimedes Palimpsest
In 1998, an anonymous billionaire purchased a horribly preserved medieval prayer book at a Christie’s auction for $2 million. The reason for the gaudy price? The battered volume also contained Read more…
Space for Arts Education
The John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D. C., is the nation’s busiest single performing arts venue, hosting some 2,000 performances annually. For years it has been cramped by its Read more…
Classical Music Popularized in San Francisco
The San Francisco Symphony was the first orchestra to feature radio broadcasts—in 1926, funded by local philanthropists. Almost 80 years later, in 2005, another generation of philanthropists (Evelyn and Walter Read more…
West by Northeast to the Frederic Remington Art Museum
The beloved painter, sculptor, and illustrator Frederic Remington was the progenitor of America’s famed school of cowboy art. Remington was not a westerner, however, but an upstate New Yorker, born Read more…