The Frick Collection has created a named position for its director. Ian Wardropper and future directors will henceforth be known as the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Director, a designation that honors the parents of Marina Kellen French, a longtime patron of the Frick. She and her family members are stewards of the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that supports both cultural and healthcare-related institutions. Comments Elizabeth Eveillard, Chair of the Frick’s Board of Trustees, “We extend our gratitude to Marina Kellen French and her family’s foundation for the generous gift that inspired this named position. It gives us great pleasure to acknowledge such a steadfast and significant commitment in this very meaningful and permanent way.” Adds Ian Wardropper, “I first met Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen in 2002 during my tenure at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I greatly admired their keen interest in and support of the Met’s European decorative arts program. Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of getting to know Marina Kellen French, particularly since I came to The Frick Collection. I feel honored that the my title of “Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Director” will pay tribute to this distinguished family, whose philanthropy has done so much to support art and culture in New York and abroad.”
About the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation
The gift was directed to the Frick by Marina Kellen French, in honor of her parents, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen, now deceased. Stephen M. Kellen was the longtime president and CEO of Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder Inc., an international investment firm re-established in New York in 1937 by his father-in-law, Hans Arnhold, today known as First Eagle Investment Management LLC. Mr. Kellen founded the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation in New York City in 1983. The Hans Arnhold family villa on the Wannsee in Berlin, where Mr. Kellen met his wife, Anna-Maria (née Arnhold), is now the American Academy in Berlin, for which the Foundation gave the founding grant in 1994. The Foundation has supported The Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Carnegie Hall (where Mr. Kellen was a trustee), WNET Channel 13 (Great Performances), free admission at MoMA PS1, among others. The foundation has also made gifts to the Animal Medical Center, the Mayo Clinic, Weill Cornell Medical College, the Hospital for Special Surgery and Columbia Business School.
About Marina Kellen French
An avid proponent of the arts and humanities both in the United States and abroad, Marina Kellen French is vice president of the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation; president of the Marina Kellen French Foundation; a managing director of the Metropolitan Opera; and a trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Carnegie Hall, Hospital for Special Surgery, TEFAF Art Fair, and the American Academy in Berlin. She is also a life trustee of the Morgan Library and Museum and WNET Channel 13. In 2014, Ms. Kellen French received the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit (First Class) of the Federal Republic of Germany for her outstanding work in German-American relations. In 2018, the position of Artistic Director of the Park Avenue Armory (currently held by Pierre Audi), was named for her. In April 2019, she was honored as an Outstanding Patron at the Bard Graduate Center’s Iris Awards. She has been involved for many years in the Frick’s Director’s Circle and has participated in essential fundraising events for the institution, including its annual Autumn Dinner and Spring Garden Party. She actively supports the acquisitions program, and, together with the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, was a major sponsor of the Frick’s critically acclaimed exhibition Luigi Valadier: Splendor in Eighteenth-Century Rome (2018).
About Ian Wardropper
Ian Wardropper has served as the Director of The Frick Collection since the fall of 2011. After completing his Ph.D. at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, he served first as Eloise W. Martin Curator and later Head of the Department of European Decorative Arts, Sculpture, and Ancient Art at The Art Institute of Chicago for nineteen years. He returned to New York in 2001 as Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Chairman of the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mr. Wardropper has organized over twenty exhibitions in his specialties of European sculpture, decorative arts, and twentieth-century design and decorative arts. He has taught art history at six universities and published numerous books, catalogues, and articles. His most recent publications include European Sculpture, 1400–1900, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Bernini: Sculpting in Clay; Limoges Enamels at The Frick Collection; and Director’s Choice: The Frick Collection.