Clark Art Institute Receives Transformative Gift

The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, has received a major donation from the Aso O. Tavitian Foundation, theNew York Timesreports. Included in the gift are 331 works by renowned European artists of the Renaissance and later, as well as more than $45 million to cover the costs of the collection’s care, a curator to oversee it, and a new wing in which to house it. “It’s an unbelievable thing,” Olivier Meslay, the Clark’s director, told theTimes, noting that it was the “most transformational gift” received by the museum since the initial bequest from its founders, Sterling and Francine Clark. “It’s a great addition, a great complement to what we have.”

The Tavitian Foundation was established in 1995 by philanthropistAsa O. Tavitian(1940–2020), a Bulgarian of Armenian heritage who immigrated to the US in 1961 and amassed a fortune in software. Estimated by foundation president Candace Beinecke to be valued at several hundred million dollars, the trove of donated works comprises 132 paintings—many of them portraits—130 sculptures, thirty-nine drawings, and thirty decorative arts objects. Among the artists represented, roughly one hundred of whom are entering the Clark’s collection for the first time, are Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Hans Memling, Jacopo da Pontormo, Peter Paul Rubens, Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, and Jean-Antoine Watteau. Sculpture has not historically been a highlight of the Clark’s collection; that will change with the addition of works by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Andrea della Robbia, and Jean-Antoine Houdon, among others.

New York–based firm Selldorf Architects, under the leadership of Annabelle Selldorf, has been tapped to design the Aso O. Tavitian wing, slated for completion by 2028 at the latest. The new structure will sit between the Manton Research Center and the original museum building, the renovation of which Selldorf previously oversaw.