Donors that included the retired CEO of DuPont Co. and his wife are funding a curator for the Delaware Art Museum‘s Bancroft Collection of Pre-Raphaelite Art.
The Bancroft Curator endowment—the Museum’s first endowed position—was supported by two anonymous donations and a gift from Peggy and Ed Woolard. The endowment will be named the Annette Woolard-Provine Endowed Curator of the Bancroft Collection in honor of the Woolards’ daughter, a current Delaware Art Museum Trustee.
“Endowed curator positions help museums attract and retain the most talented scholars in the profession,” says Mike Miller, Chief Executive Officer of the Delaware Art Museum. “We are delighted that three very generous donors chose to invest in the Museum and in the Bancroft Collection through this incredible joint gift. These gifts demonstrate the community’s ongoing support and desire to see the museum thrive.”
The museum has struggled with financial problems that led to the sale of paintings to retire debt resulting from an ill-fated museum expansion. It has lost its accreditation, due to the sales.
Samuel Bancroft, Jr. (1840 – 1915), a Wilmington textile mill owner, collected Pre-Raphaelite art that came out of movement in the United Kingdom. By the time of his death in 1915, Bancroft had assembled a collection of more than 100 paintings, prints and drawings, in addition to a s library and archive. The Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Collection expanded and is one of the largest and most significant Pre-Raphaelite holdings outside of the United Kingdom.
In 1935, when the Samuel Bancroft’s family donated his Pre-Raphaelite collection to the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts (now the Delaware Art Museum), they also donated 11 acres on Kentmere Parkway in Wilmington.
Founded in 1912, the Delaware Art Museum is best known for its large collection of works by Wilmington native Howard Pyle and fellow American illustrators, a major collection of British Pre- Raphaelite art, and urban landscapes by John Sloan and his circle. Visitors can also enjoy the outdoor Copeland Sculpture Garden and a number of special exhibitions throughout the year.
