Agnes Gund was born on 1938 and is an American philanthropist and arts patron, collector of modern and contemporary art, and arts education and social justice advocate.
18 Facts About Agnes Gund
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Agnes Gund is President Emerita and Life Trustee of the Museum of Modern Art and Chairman of its International Council.
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Agnes Gund became interested in art while a 15-year-old student at Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut.
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Later, Agnes Gund attended Connecticut College for Women, where she received a bachelor's degree in history.
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Agnes Gund received her master's degree in art history from Harvard's Fogg Museum.
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Agnes Gund joined MoMA's International Council in 1967; she then joined the board of trustees in 1976 and served as its President from 1991 until 2002.
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Agnes Gund serves on the boards of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies, and the Morgan Library and Museum.
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Agnes Gund is co-founder and Chair Emerita of the Center for Curatorial Leadership and is an Honorary Trustee of YoungArts, Independent Curators International and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland.
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In 1997, Agnes Gund received the National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton, the highest award given to artists and arts patrons by the US government.
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In 1998, Agnes Gund received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
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In 2011, Agnes Gund was nominated by President Barack Obama as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Council on the Arts.
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In January 2017, Agnes Gund sold Roy Lichtenstein's Masterpiece in order to provide $100 million in seed funding for the Art for Justice Fund, which supports criminal justice reform and seeks to reduce mass incarceration in the United States.
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Agnes Gund described Michelle Alexander's 2010 book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness and Ava DuVernay's 2016 documentary 13th about African-Americans in the prison system as motivators for starting the fund, as well as concern for her grandchildren, six of whom are Black.
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Agnes Gund is Founder and Chair Emerita of Studio in a School.
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Agnes Gund has donated hundreds of works to MoMA, numerous works to the Cleveland Museum of Art, and has given or loaned various pieces to museums around the country.
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Agnes Gund has received honorary doctorate degrees from the CUNY Graduate Center, University of Illinois, Brown University, Kenyon College, Case Western Reserve University, Hamilton College, Bowdoin College, and University of the Arts.
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Agnes Gund's brother Graham is an architect; her brother Geoff is a career teacher of economics and American history; and her sister, Louise Gund, is a Tony Award-winning theater producer, environmentalist, women's activist, and philanthropist.
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Agnes Gund was married to Albrecht "Brec" Saalfield, an heir to the Saalfield Publishing Company of Akron, Ohio.