Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University

Dear Nasher Museum members, friends, and visitors,

We are excited and humbled by your incredible response to Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore. The exhibition was an outstanding success, with more than 50,000 visitors, including 5,340 K-12 school children! Many of you saw the richly narrated documentary on North Carolina's public television network, UNC-TV, filmed here at the museum, which helped us reach a wide audience. We enjoyed fascinating public talks by Karen Levitov of The Jewish Museum in New York (art historian and curator of the exhibition) and Nancy Ramage (author, art historian and great-great niece of the Cone sisters). We immersed ourselves in the story of the Cone sisters and their special connection to North Carolina as we celebrated so many aspects of the exhibition with French wine tastings, live French music, French conversation sessions, dramatic readings, sketching in the galleries and more.

At the Nasher Museum, we are extremely grateful to our lead sponsors, Crow Creek Foundation and Wells Fargo, and our media sponsor, NBC17. Major support was also provided by the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust, Marilyn Arthur, Trent Carmichael, Carol O'Brien Associates, Inc., Katherine Thorpe, Office of the President at Duke University, Office of the Provost at Duke University, Frances Rollins, Drs. Victor and Lenore Behar, Christie’s, and Thomas S. Kenan, III. Additional generous support was provided by the Cemala Foundation, Stefanie and Douglas Kahn, Kelly Braddy Van Winkle and Lance Van Winkle, Graduate Liberal Studies at Duke University, Parker and Otis, Jo and Peter Baer, Pepper and Don Fluke, Mindy and Guy Solie, Carolyn Aaronson, Marcia Angle and Mark Trustin, Diane Evia-Lanevi and Ingemar Lanevi, Janet Holderness and William Transou, Caroline and Arthur Rogers, Angela O. Terry, Ruth Glesby Wagner, and Jewish Life at Duke, and an indemnity grant from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Without the help of these institutions and individuals, we could not have presented the exhibition (organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Jewish Museum, New York, and the Vancouver Art Gallery) here in Durham.

I want to thank our visitors from all over North Carolina, and even farther afield, as well as the Duke community and our members. All of you have made it possible for the Nasher Museum to present great art to our community.

Sincerely,

Sarah Schroth
Interim Director
Nancy Hanks Senior Curator
Coordinating Curator, Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters
Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University