Bader Philanthropies gives $4.4 million to Milwaukee Art Museum

Thanks to a $4.4 million gift from Bader Philanthropies, the Milwaukee Art Museum has started an endowment fund to support its collection and exhibition of European artwork, including related scholarship.

The Isabel and Alfred Bader European Art Program Endowment Fund, named for longtime MAM patrons, will provide permanent support for the museum’s curator of European art position, held by Tanya Paul since 2013.

“Bader Philanthropies’ generous gift enables us to maintain this collection, continue scholarly research, and ensure access for everyone, continuing our work in the spirit that the Baders would have wanted,” said museum director Marcelle Polednik in a statement issued by MAM.

It also will help facilitate the forthcoming exhibit “Art, Life, Legacy: Northern European Paintings in the Collection of Isabel and Alfred Bader,” which will open in September. That exhibit will include more than 75 Dutch and Flemish paintings — including works by Rembrandt van Rijn and Jan Lievens — that the Baders assembled in Milwaukee.