Homepage - World Art Foundations

Members Spotlight: Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, Texas, USA)

The Kimbell Art Museum officially opened on October 4, 1972. The Kimbell Art Foundation, which owns and operates the Museum, had been established in 1936 by Kay and Velma Kimbell, together with Kay’s sister and her husband, Dr. and Mrs. Coleman Carter. Early on, the Foundation collected mostly British and French portraits of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

By the time Mr. Kimbell died in April 1964, the collection had grown to 260 paintings and 86 other works of art, including such singular paintings as Hals’s Rommel-Pot Player, Gainsborough’s Portrait of a Woman, Vigée Le Brun’s Self-Portrait, and Leighton’s Portrait of May Sartoris.

Motivated by his wish “to encourage art in Fort Worth and Texas,” Mr. Kimbell left his estate to the Foundation, charging it with the creation of a museum. Mr. Kimbell had made clear his desire that the future museum be “of the first class,” and to further that aim, within a week of his death, his widow, Velma, contributed her share of the community property to the Foundation. Find out more here…

Images below selected from their collection: Henry Moore ‘Figure in a Shelter’, cast 1983, Piet Mondrian ‘Abstraction’, 1939–42, Joan Miró ‘Portrait of Heriberto Casany’, 1918 and George Stubbs ‘Lord Grosvenor’s Arabian Stallion with a Groom’, c. 1765.

Joan Miró ‘Portrait of Heriberto Casany’

George Stubbs ‘Lord Grosvenor's Arabian Stallion with a Groom’, c. 1765

Exhibition of the Week: Kasteel Wijlre, Wijlre, The Netherlands

“Aether” – Guiseppe Licari

Aether is an exhibition about nature’s capacity to survive and endure human intervention. In Greek mythology, Aether was the personification of the uppermost layer of air in Earth’s atmosphere that the gods breathe. Giuseppe Licari interprets Aether more broadly as the symbolic ‘in-between space’ arising from the entanglement of humans and ecosystems. Licari’s sculptures and installations allude to this in-between space. The Aether camera obscura transforms the top floor of the Coach House into a magical world in which the building’s historic interior merges with the surrounding garden. The exhibition runs from 13 July 2022 to 8 January 2023.

Find out more here.

Next WAF Event:

WAF Roundtable: Growing and Retaining Volunteers

Join in a discussion with other members and hear how they support the growth and retention of their volunteers

Monday 8th August

10:30 EST | 15:30 GMT | 16:30 CET

Read Our Latest Newsletter: Traveling Through the World of Art Foundations

This summer seems filled with exhibitions at art foundations that can be visited by nights and days, from inside or outside, or in dark and light. Indeed, Yayoi Kusama‘s Infinity Room at the PHI Foundation in Montreal (CAN), Abstract Art from the collection of Fondation Gandur on show at Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence (FR), or even Mahmoud Khaled‘s installations at The Mosaic Rooms in London (UK), as well as Sculpture Triennale at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln (USA) and Exterior/Interior at the Fundació Suñol in Barcelona (SP) are going with that mood. Visit and enjoy your travel through the world of art foundations this Summer.

READ FURTHER