The Milwaukee Art Museum announced that, with the support of a gift of $4.4 million from Bader Philanthropies, Inc. it has established the Isabel and Alfred Bader European Art Program Endowment Fund. Honoring the legacies of the late Drs. Isabel and Alfred Bader, longtime patrons and friends of the museum, the Endowment Fund bolsters the museum’s ability to serve as an essential civic, cultural, and educational resource for its community, including providing permanent support for the museum’s Isabel and Alfred Bader Curator of European Art. Additionally, the gift supports the exhibition Art, Life, Legacy: Northern European Paintings in the Collection of Isabel and Alfred Bader, opening in September 2023, which features more than 75 exquisite Dutch and Flemish masterpieces, including works by Rembrandt van Rijn and Jan Lievens, that the Baders assembled in Milwaukee.

The Isabel and Alfred Bader European Art Program Endowment Fund underwrites the position held by CODART member Tanya Paul, an expert in seventeenth-century Dutch art who has held the role of Isabel and Alfred Bader Curator of European Art since 2013 when it was first established. During her tenure, Paul spearheaded a landmark reinstallation of the museum’s European galleries and has organized several major exhibitions of European art. The Endowment Fund ensures Paul will continue her critical work of overseeing the research, exhibition, and acquisition of European art at the Museum, creating new opportunities for the public to experience and learn from a wide-ranging collection that spans from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries.