Darren Walker to Helm the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork in Washington, D.C.


Former Ford Basis president Darren Walker has been elected president of the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork in Washington, D.C.—efficient instantly—the establishment introduced Tuesday.

Walker, who has been a board member of the Nationwide Gallery since 2019, is maybe finest identified for his 11-year tenure on the helm of one of many nation’s largest and most influential philanthropies, the Ford Basis. There, he shifted the establishment’s focus in the direction of inequality and oversaw the distribution of $7 billion in grant funding.

As a Nationwide Gallery trustee, Walker established and has continued to construct an artwork acquisition fund devoted to excellence and variety via the Ford Basis. The fund supplied assist for the exhibition “Afro-Atlantic Histories” in 2022 and facilitated the acquisition of the Ross J. Kelbaugh Assortment of Nineteenth- and early Twentieth-century American pictures in 2023.

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PARK CITY, UTAH - JANUARY 23: President of the Ford Foundation and recipient of Sundance Institute's Vanguard Award for Philanthropy Darren Walker speaks during 2020 Sundance Film Festival - An Artist At The Table Presented By IMDbPro Dinner & Reception at Juniper at Newpark on January 23, 2020 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

Walker additionally serves on quite a lot of boards, amongst them, the Lincoln Middle for the Performing Arts, the Excessive Line, Artwork Bridges, and the Basis for Artwork and Preservation in Embassies. He has acquired 17 honorary levels and such awards because the Commander of the French Order of Arts and Letters and the Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II.

Previous to main the Ford Basis, Walker was vice chairman on the Rockefeller Basis and COO of Harlem’s Abyssinian Growth Company.

In his new position, Walker succeeds American businessman and artwork collector Mitchell P. Rales, who will stay an energetic trustee.

“I look ahead to working intently with Darren, who brings a powerful imaginative and prescient and information into the position at a significant and thrilling time within the Nationwide Gallery’s trajectory. We stay dedicated to our mission of serving the nation and respect the partnership of the trustees in realizing this essential work,” Kaywin Feldman, director of the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork, stated in an announcement.

“Mitch’s steadfast management as a trustee for 18 years, with the previous 5 years as president, has been a mannequin of service to the Nationwide Gallery and our nation. He’s a real ambassador for the civic and inventive lifetime of our society. Working in partnership with him has been invaluable. I, together with the whole board, am extraordinarily grateful that he’ll stay an energetic member of the board,” Feldman added.

Rales has served as a trustee of the Nationwide Gallery since 2006. Throughout his five-year tenure as president, the Nationwide Gallery efficiently accomplished its largest capital renewal undertaking, together with the East constructing skylight alternative. The museum additionally acquired the Corcoran Gallery of Artwork assortment and wrapped a significant fundraising marketing campaign that bolstered acquisitions and assets for conservation and scholarship. 

The cofounders of Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Maryland, Rales and his spouse Emily Wei contributed monetary presents that contributed to initiatives such because the museum’s East constructing renovation in 2016. Moreover, the Glenstone Basis supported the acquisition of such artworks as Jaune Fast-to-See Smith’s Goal (1992), Simone Leigh’s Sentinel (2022), and Katharina Fritsch’s Hahn/Cock (2013).

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