Major accomplishments
AARAT's major accomplishments
- Since 1983, the American Associates, while being completely self-supporting, have been able to make gifts to the Royal Academy of over $32 million.
- On May 22, 2002, HM the Queen dedicated the Annenberg Courtyard, designed by Sir Michael Hopkins, RA. Refurbishment of the Courtyard was made possible by a generous donation from Walter H. Annenberg, the late former American Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, and his wife Lenore, who is also an AARAT Trustee. This dedication marks the completion of one of three projects encompassed in the Royal Academy’s current capital campaign, for which AARAT has assumed responsibility to raise one-third of the funds.
- AARAT was instrumental in establishing, in 1996, the Hugh and Margaret Casson Exhibitions Fund to assist in the research and development stage of RA exhibitions coming to American museums. Since the early 1980's, more than thirty RA exhibitions have traveled to 37 museums in the U.S.
- Dr. Arthur M. Sackler and his wife, an AARAT Trustee, were the major contributors to the award-winning Jillian and Arthur M. Sackler Wing, which was designed by Sir Norman Foster, RA, and dedicated by HM the Queen in 1991.
- The restoration of Gallery III, the largest of the Main galleries, was made possible by a gift from AARAT; it was re-named The American Associates Gallery by HRH The Prince Of Wales in June 1996.
- AARAT helped to fund construction of the 'new', i.e. the current Library, as well as the new Friends’ Room.
- AARAT secures funds from American benefactors for full-time scholarships at the RA Schools, such as the Sterling Scholarship and the Birley Scholarship.
- The Starr Scholarship, established in 1986, provides for a one-year artist's residency for American students at the Royal Academy Schools in perpetuity; it is made possible by the Starr Foundation, the philanthropic arm of American International Group in New York.
- AARAT established a five-year Lecture Program on American Creativity at the RA through a gift from The Henry Luce Foundation in New York.
- The first gift from AARAT to the RA was used to fund the lift that brings pictures from the basement to the upper galleries, and to start the RA’s first endowment.
