The Campaign for a New Century seeks funding for new operating endowment, structural enhancements to our twenty-year-old Edward Larrabee Barnes–designed building, and increased annual membership resources.

Campaign News

The Dallas Museum of Art Announces a Grant by The Meadows Foundation to Establish the Center for Creative Connections in 2008

$4.38 Million Award Includes a Campaign Challenge to Support Innovative Public Education in the Arts and Complements The Allen and Kelli Questrom Foundation’s Earlier Gift

The Dallas Museum of Art is pleased to announce that The Meadows Foundation is making a $4.38 million grant in support of the Museum’s educational mission to inspire lifelong learning through engaging experiences with works of art. The foundation’s award will provide capital funds to establish the Center for Creative Connections, formerly known as the Gateway Gallery, and support building enhancements for education. Once completed, the Center for Creative Connections will be an experimental learning environment that provides interactive encounters with works of art and artists. Designed to stimulate curiosity, inquiry, and reflection in visitors of all ages and learning styles, the Center will serve as a bridge between the everyday experiences of looking and the transformational experiences of seeing, creating, and connecting deeply with works of art and with other participants.

Specifically, The Meadows Foundation award will provide $3 million for construction and renovation costs to launch the Center for Creative Connections, to improve all other Concourse-level education galleries and facilities (including the Horchow Auditorium), and to upgrade technology infrastructure for Museum-wide wireless Internet connectivity. The $3 million gift is part of a dollar-for-dollar challenge to achieve complete funding. Additionally, the Meadows Foundation will give $1.38 million to expand the existing educational programming and to support added educational staff.

On presenting the grant, Linda Evans, Executive Director of The Meadows Foundation, said, “We are delighted to award this Meadows Foundation grant to the Dallas Museum of Art to further its outstanding educational programming, especially in the area of early child development, something we at The Meadows Foundation and the DMA approach with joint enthusiasm. Because we believe that philanthropy should play a starring role in meeting community needs, today’s announcement is a joyous testament to this ideal.”

The Meadows award comes in the same year that The Allen & Kelli Questrom Foundation made a five-year, $2.825 million grant to endow the new senior education position of Director of the Center for Creative Connections and provide five years of operating support, including enhanced, ongoing evaluation and visitor research for all of its education offerings.

“I’d like to congratulate and thank The Meadows Foundation and Catherine M. Rose, the Chair of our Campaign for a New Century, for their amazing effort to bring this most generous gift to our institution,” said John R. Lane, The Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art. “The DMA has worked diligently during the past few years to define a more ambitious future. The strong personal interest that both the foundation and Catherine have expressed in advancing education goals in Dallas and in our Museum is enormously exciting and much appreciated.”

The Allen and Kelli Questrom Foundation Awards $2.825 in Support of Excellence and Experimentation in Education

In honor of Robert K. and Marguerite S. Hoffman, The Allen and Kelli Questrom Foundation has awarded a five-year, $2.825-million dollar grant to support the Museum’s educational mission to inspire lifelong learning through engaging experiences with works of art. The grant will help launch the Center for Creative Connections in 2008, an experimental learning environment designed to serve as a bridge between our everyday experiences of looking and the transformational experiences of seeing, creating, and connecting with works of art and other people. The award will endow a new education position, the Head of the Center for Creative Connections, and provide years of operating support as well as the means for enhanced, ongoing evaluation and visitor research for all of the Museum’s education programs.

Kelli Questrom, a longtime arts education advocate who has served on the DMA Board of Trustees since 2002, had this to say about the magnanimous gift: “This award reflects the mutual desire of our foundation and the DMA to provide lifelong learning through innovative public education in the arts, with the anticipation that the DMA’s approach will serve as a model for improvement in education nationally.” Kelli and her husband, Allen Questrom, Chairman & CEO Emeritus of the JCPenney Company, Inc. and a partner of Lee Equity Partners in New York, have been major supporters of the DMA and key contributors to the Campaign for a New Century. As DMA members, the Questroms made the first pledge to the Donor Circle membership program in 2004 and are currently serving as Underwriting Co-Chairmen for The Art Ball 2007, Continuum.

Together, Allen and Kelli Questrom have set a precedent with their active involvement and dedication to education at the Dallas Museum of Art and for the city of Dallas. This award from the Questrom Foundation advances the progress of the DMA’s Campaign for a New Century toward $40 million in new education endowment resources.

Marguerite Hoffman (center), Chairman of the Dallas Museum of Art Board of Trustees, with Kelli and Allen Questrom.

To learn more about the Campaign for a New Century, please call Linda Lipscomb at 214-922-1303 or e-mail llipscomb@DallasMuseumofArt.org.