DALLAS, TX.- The Dallas Museum of Art announced a major gift from DMA trustee and past chairman Marguerite Steed Hoffman that was conceived to expand and enhance the Museum’s collection of European art, primarily of the Renaissance and Baroque eras, through the establishment of a $17 million endowment.

The gift creates a $13,600,000 restricted acquisitions endowment and a $3,400,000 operating endowment in support of pre-1700 European acquisitions, exhibitions, and programs. This new fund more than doubles the DMA’s acquisition endowment and brings total funds in support of the Museum’s acquisitions to 50,000,000.

“Marguerite Hoffman has done what few other American museum trustees have done,” said DMA chair Deedie Potter Rose. “She has significantly elevated our stature and potential as a collecting institution with one remarkable gift.”

Maxwell L. Anderson, The Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art, added, “Marguerite Hoffman’s incredibly generous gift, in her name and that of her late husband, Robert, creates an extremely exciting opportunity for the DMA to build our collection of European art in unprecedented ways.”

The European collection of the Dallas Museum of Art is particularly strong in late 19th- and early 20th-century works, with the most significant collection of French impressionism and post-impressionism in the region. But its collection of old master paintings is comparatively modest. A recent fundraising campaign culminating in an offer to purchase Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi (c. 1499–1512), while not accepted, encouraged Mrs. Hoffman to make this gift in support of the DMA’s collection.

“There is no greater pleasure for me than to help the DMA strengthen its already remarkable collection,” Mrs. Hoffman said in announcing the gift. “The Museum deserves the resources to increase the scope of its European holdings, and I am honored to be able to do this for the Museum and the people of Dallas on behalf of Robert and myself.”

Even prior to this gift, Marguerite and Robert Hoffman were already among the greatest benefactors in the Museum’s history. In February 2005, the Dallas Museum of Art announced the unprecedented gift of modern and contemporary collections from Marguerite and Robert Hoffman, Cindy and Howard Rachofsky, and Deedie and Rusty Rose. The idea behind the joint gift came from the Hoffmans, who at the time co-chaired the Centennial Campaign, which was launched in 2003–04 to ensure the Dallas Museum of Art’s continuing stability and growth. To jump-start the campaign, the Hoffmans issued a bold challenge: If the Museum reached its goal for the first phase of the campaign, they would bequeath to the Dallas Museum of Art their art collection and an endowment to care for the collection as well as make a generous gift to the campaign. Their action provided the foundation for a successful campaign that ultimately raised over $185 million.

The modern and contemporary collections, today including masterworks by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Brice Marden, Gerhard Richter, and many other contemporary masters, greatly enhanced the DMA’s representation of European and American art of the late 20th and 21st centuries. This latest act of generosity by Mrs. Hoffman will add significantly to a different facet of the DMA’s growing collection.