Release Date: September 29, 2006
NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART TRUSTEES
ELECT JOHN C. FONTAINE AS NEW CHAIRMAN
AND APPOINT MITCHELL P. RALES
AS NEW TRUSTEE;
CHAIRMAN ROBERT F. ERBURU BECOMES TRUSTEE EMERITUS
Washington, DC—Following a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery of Art on September 29, 2006, Victoria P. Sant, president of the Gallery, announced that John C. Fontaine, chairman of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, was elected chairman of the board. Retiring chairman Robert F. Erburu was awarded the National Gallery of Art Medal for Distinguished Service and becomes trustee emeritus. At the same meeting, philanthropist Mitchell P. Rales of Washington, DC, was elected as a new trustee to succeed Erburu.
Sant expressed her "gratefulness on behalf of the entire Board of Trustees for Robert Erburu's contributions to the Gallery for thirteen years." Erburu became chairman in 2000 and has been a member of the board since 1993. From 1985 to 1993 he was a member of the Trustee's Council, an advisory group to the Trustees. Erburu, retired chairman and chief executive officer, The Times Mirror Company, Los Angeles, has donated his time and expertise to a number of institutions, including the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens; The J. Paul Getty Trust; The Brookings Institution; The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; and other charitable foundations. He and his wife Lois are members of Patron Circle of the National Gallery of Art and reside in Los Angeles.
John C. Fontaine
John (Jack) C. Fontaine has been chairman of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation since 1994 and a member of its board since 1975. The Kress Foundation devotes its resources to advancing the history, conservation, and enjoyment of European art, architecture, and archaeology from antiquity to the 19th century. The Foundation is also associated with The Kress Collection of more than 3,000 works of European art that were assembled by Samuel H. Kress and the Kress Foundation between 1927 and 1961 and donated to more than 90 museums in the United States, Puerto Rico, and France. Of the 3,000 works the Kress Foundation gave 1,800 to the National Gallery of Art. The Kress Foundation has also funded many Gallery acquisitions and initiatives in conservation and fellowships at the Gallery's Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.
Fontaine has been a member of the Gallery's Board of Trustees since 2003. He was a member of the Gallery's Trustees' Council, an advisory group to the Board of Trustees, from 1984 to 2000 and from 2002 to present. He and his wife Betty, who reside in New York City, have supported such Gallery initiatives as the 50th Anniversary Gift Committee, the New Century Fund, and The Circle. They are collectors of American, Asian, and Latin American art and decorative objects.
John Fontaine, a graduate of the University of Michigan and Harvard Law School, was president of Knight Ridder, a major newspaper company, and a member of its board of directors. Following his retirement from Knight Ridder, he rejoined the New York law firm of Hughes Hubbard & Reed, where he had been managing partner and represented major companies in significant transactions, as well as advising them on governance and strategy.
Mitchell P. Rales
Mitchell P. Rales, a major donor to the National Gallery of Art, joined the Trustees' Council in 2001. He has been a member of the Collectors Committee since 1999 and the Legacy Circle since 2002. He has lent works of art to Gallery exhibitions Willem de Kooning: Tracing the Figure in 2002 and Mark Rothko in 1998 and was a long-term lender of Rothko's No. 9 (White and Black on Wine) (1958).
Rales is founder and director of The Glenstone Foundation, which provided and pledged the funds for the Gallery's purchase of Ellsworth Kelly's Color Panels for a Large Wall (1978) and gave a partial and promised donation of Rachel Whiteread's sculpture Ghost (1990), both of which are on view in the Gallery's East Building. The Glenstone Foundation also provided the funds for the purchase of Jean Fautrier's painting, Body and Soul (1957) and, together with the Gallery's Patrons' Permanent Fund, made possible the purchase of Pablo Picasso's bronze, Head of a Woman (Fernande) (model 1909, cast before 1932).
Born in 1956, Rales has devoted a substantial amount of his time and energy to cultural and educational institutions in the greater Washington area. Most notable is the generosity of The Glenstone Foundation as a major contributor to Washington's Seed Public Charter School, of which Rales is a director. He is also the founder, director, and chairman of the executive committee of Danaher Corporation, a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Washington, DC.
A graduate of Miami University, Rales serves on the board of The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. He was formerly the chairman of the Capital Campaign for the Hospital for Sick Children, Fight for Children, and the Capital Campaign for Norwood School, as well as a member of the Advisory Council of Miami University, where he received an honorary doctorate in 2005.
Board of Trustees
The current members of the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery of Art are The Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts, Jr.; the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; the Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. Paulson, Jr.; the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Lawrence M. Small; Victoria P. Sant; John C. Fontaine; Sharon Percy Rockefeller; John Wilmerding; and Mitchell P. Rales. Sant is president of the National Gallery of Art and Fontaine is chairman of the Board of Trustees. Earl. A. Powell III is director of the National Gallery of Art.
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