Phillips Collection Secures Record $15 Million Gift From Sherman Fairchild Foundation
The Phillips Collection has received the largest gift in its history: a $15 million grant from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation. The Washington museum said the money will support its long-range strategic plan, strengthen its endowment, and fund behind-the-scenes improvements that are likely to shape the institution for years before they are visible to the public.
According to the museum, $11.75 million of the grant will go directly to the endowment. Those funds are earmarked for permanent support tied to conservation leadership, staff investment, and a newly established capital reserve. The remaining portion will help advance the Phillips’s Strategic Plan, which Jonathan P. Binstock began developing after becoming director and CEO in 2023.
The first phase of that plan covers 2025 through 2029 and identifies four priorities: acquiring art by living artists, expanding audiences, reinforcing the museum’s finances, and increasing operational capacity. The grant will also pay for the Phillips’s first-ever facilities needs assessment, along with upgrades to its data and digital asset management systems. In practical terms, that means a closer look at the building’s needs and a more connected internal infrastructure for staff and collections work.
The most immediate public-facing impact may come at Phillips@THEARC, the museum’s satellite campus in Washington, D.C. There, the new funding will help launch the inaugural Art-Play-Practice program, built around an immersive installation by D.C.-based architecture and design firm To Be Done Studio. The installation will engage visitors with Sam Gillam’s “Broad Cape” (1972), one of the collection’s notable works.
The gift also underscores a long relationship between the foundation and the museum. Sherman Fairchild previously supported renovations to the Phillips’s conservation lab in 2006, gave the institution another $10 million in 2008, and helped establish the Sherman Fairchild Fellowship in 2019. The new grant arrives roughly six months after the Phillips made the controversial decision to deaccession eight masterpieces for auction at Sotheby’s, a move that drew scrutiny even as the museum continues to position itself for the future.
Founded 105 years ago, the Phillips remains one of the country’s most closely watched museums of modern art. This latest gift suggests that, for the institution, the next chapter will be written as much in its systems, staff, and endowment as in its galleries.
