A $500,000 gift from Emily Rauh Pulitzer, founder and president of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, has established the first permanent endowment fund for the Sam Fox Arts Center at Washington University in St. Louis.
“The projects underwritten by the income from this endowment will further the missions and purposes of both institutions,” Pulitzer said. “We are confident that our collaboration will also strengthen the greater community.”
Parallel to the Sam Fox Arts Center, which unites visual art and design, architecture and art history, the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts defines itself as a resource for the contemplation, enjoyment and study of the arts. Designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Tadao Ando, the building hosts exhibitions and programs, where creative forms of interaction with artists, scholars and the general public are encouraged.
“Emily Pulitzer is a prominent and dedicated advocate for the arts, both in St. Louis and nationally,” noted Mark S. Weil, Ph.D., the E. Desmond Lee Professor for Collaboration in the Arts and director of both the Sam Fox Arts Center and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. “We are deeply grateful for her generosity and look forward to working with her and the Pulitzer Foundation for years to come.”
Pulitzer, a longtime champion for the arts, also serves on the boards of Grand Center and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, as well as those of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Harvard University Art Museums. Her numerous achievements include co-founding, in 1986, Arts in Transit, a partnership with Metro (the public transportation system of St. Louis) that has since completed more than 100 public artworks, installations and community enhancements.
The Sam Fox Arts Center
The Sam Fox Arts Center is a campus-wide umbrella organization for study and promotion of the visual arts. The center links Washington University’s five visual arts and design areas — the School of Architecture, School of Art, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum (formerly Gallery of Art), Art & Architecture Library and Department of Art History & Archaeology in Arts & Sciences — through shared facilities and cooperative curricula and programming.
This fall, the Sam Fox Arts Center will begin construction of two new buildings designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki. When completed in 2006, the new buildings will be integrated with three renovated arts facilities to form a comprehensive, five-building arts complex at the eastern end of the Hilltop Campus.