Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, has announced a $25 million commitment from the Marieluise Hessel Foundation and a matching commitment of $25 million from Open Society Foundations founder George Soros to endow its Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS Bard).

The foundation of CCS Bard co-founder Marieluise Hessel made the gift in honor of the thirtieth anniversary of the institution — the first of its kind in the United States dedicated exclusively to curatorial studies, an interdisciplinary field exploring the historical, intellectual, and social conditions that inform contemporary art exhibition-making and practice. In the late 1980s, the foundation entrusted its collection of contemporary art to Bard for the exclusive use of its students and faculty, laying the groundwork for the creation of CCS Bard, and has since made gifts to fund construction of the Hessel Museum of Art in 2006 and the expansion of the library, special collections, and archives in 2015, alongside annual operating contributions.

The $25 million in matching funds from Soros is part of a $500 million challenge gift announced in April, the lead gift in the college's $1 billion endowment campaign. The $50 million endowment will enable CCS Bard to continue its work in perpetuity.

"This gift from the Marieluise Hessel Foundation marks a milestone moment in the thirty-year history of CCS Bard," said Tom Eccles, executive director of CSS Bard and founding director of the Hessel Museum of Art. "The groundwork that Marieluise established in co-founding the institution has catalyzed a shift in the field and, by extension, has advanced bold new discourses in contemporary art. In sustaining CCS Bard for generations to come, Marieluise's generosity will allow us to build on that legacy and continue to advance new ideas in curatorial practice and contemporary art. Above all, it is a gift to the future."

"For the past thirty years, CCS Bard has had an outsized impact within the art world," said Hessel. "It is a privilege to be able to celebrate three decades of sustained, transformational inquiry and experimentation into curatorial studies and exhibition-making with this gift. I know that this program will continue to lead the way in finding new stories to tell, artists to champion, and boundaries to push."