In Memoriam: Mary D.B.T. Semans
1920 - 2012
Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, a longtime supporter of the Nasher Museum and passionate advocate for the arts, died on January 25, 2012. She was 91.
“We would not be here, and the Nasher Museum would not exist, without Mary,” said Kimerly Rorschach, the Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Director of the Nasher Museum. “Every arts organization in North Carolina knew her generosity. On a personal level, Mary cared very deeply about people, possessed a unique historical perspective and was a wonderful advisor. She was also our very real connection to the founding of Duke University.”
Mary Semans was the granddaughter of Benjamin Duke and great-granddaughter of Washington Duke, for whom Duke University was named. She graduated from Duke’s Woman’s College in 1939. The Nasher Museum’s great hall bears her name, and the museum directorship and the annual Semans Lecture are named for both Semans and her late husband. During the 1960s and ’70s, while serving on the Duke Board of Trustees, Mrs. Semans advocated for an art museum on campus and worked closely with the late Raymond D. Nasher, a 1943 graduate of Duke, to establish the Nasher Museum.
Her mother, Mary Duke Biddle, created a charitable foundation in 1956, near the end of her life. Since the museum’s inception, The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation has generously given annual support to fund such programs as educational outreach, publications, art conservation, exhibitions, musical performances and summer internships for students. To help establish the museum, which opened in 2005, the Foundation gave a major gift to name one of the three gallery pavilions for the late Nicholas Benjamin Duke Biddle, the brother of Mrs. Semans and one of the first trustees of the Foundation. The Duke Endowment, a charitable trust in Charlotte, NC, also made a significant naming gift to create the Mary D.B.T. Semans Great Hall.
In 2010, the Nasher Museum presented the inaugural Mary D.B.T. Semans Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts, “to honor the vision and leadership of our most passionate advocates for the arts.” She was also a member of the Nasher Museum’s national board of advisors.
More information:
Funeral Arrangements
Letter from Duke President Richard H. Brodhead
Obituary in The News and Observer
Obituary in The Charlotte Observer
