Bruce Museum Receives $5 Million Donation from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation

The Gift from the Longtime Museum Supporters Will Fund a Major Expansion of Educational Programming at the New Bruce

A view of the school-group orientation space in the New Bruce. Currently the Museum’s main entrance
and lobby, this area will serve as the entry to the greatly expanded Education Wing.

GREENWICH, CT, September 8, 2019– The Bruce Museum’s Campaign for the New Bruce has received a $5 million gift from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation. The donation, first announced to the public at a community-wide celebration held at the Museum on Sunday, September 8, will fund the Education Wing planned for the Museum’s transformative expansion and construction project currently under way.

“Steven and Alexandra Cohen, through their charitable foundation, are already invaluable supporters of the Museum’s youth and family programs, helping us provide arts education to over 25,000 K-12 students a year from schools across our region,” says Robert Wolterstorff, The Susan E. Lynch Executive Director. “With this incredibly generous capital donation from the Cohens, the Museum will be able to deliver on its promise to double the number of schoolchildren we serve each year, and dramatically expand our arts education programs for students, families, and visitors of all ages and abilities. This is a game-changer for the New Bruce, and we can’t thank the Cohens enough for their vision and commitment to the Museum.”

The new Education Wing of the reimagined Museum will be located in the current Museum building and will include new classrooms, with space dedicated to interactive, hands-on learning quadrupling in size. The Education Wing, which will be named in honor of the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, will have its own dedicated entrance, enabling the Museum to accommodate over 200 students per day in grades K-12. For a number of these students, a school trip to the Bruce will be their first encounter with a museum.

“Giving children access to the arts can help change their perspective and also spark their own creativity – two very important lessons when it comes to teaching young students,” said Alex Cohen, president, Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation. “We are so excited to partner with the Bruce Museum to make arts education an essential part of learning for children who would otherwise not have this opportunity.”

With the Cohen Foundation’s gift, the Campaign for the New Bruce is now more than 80 percent of the way toward the construction goal of $45 million. The overall $60 million campaign includes an additional $15 million for the Museum’s Endowment, to ensure sustainability and to support new programs. More than $6 million has been raised for the New Bruce Endowment.

The September 8 celebration, Bruce ConsTRUCKS, served as the launch of the public phase of the Campaign, an occasion to thank supporters of the New Bruce and to invite the entire community to join these benefactors in reimagining the Bruce Museum. 

The day also marked the beginning of the next phase of the expansion project: a top-to-bottom renovation of the Museum’s current changing gallery spaces. These galleries will re-open on February 1, 2020 with the installation of major new art and science exhibitions. The enhancements to the art galleries will be followed, in February 2020, by a complete renovation and reinvention of the permanent science galleries. 

 The centerpiece of the New Bruce is a three-story, 40,000 square-foot addition that will more than double the size of the current Museum. Designed by the New Orleans firm of EskewDumezRipple, the building will open directly onto Bruce Park and feature a delicate striated façade of cast stone and glass inspired by the surfaces of Connecticut’s rock quarries. Groundbreaking for the art wing will take place summer 2020. 

 When complete, this unprecedented initiative will expand the Museum from 30,000 square feet toover 70,000 square feet, adding state-of-the-art exhibition galleries for art and science, new education spaces, and a restaurant, auditorium, and meeting spaces that will make the Museum a vibrant center for the Greenwich community.

 Bruce Museum Managing Director, Suzanne Lio, applauded the Cohens for their past support, as well as the ways in which this major new gift will impact the Museum’s future, stating, “The Bruce is delivering art instruction to more children and young adults, and touching the lives of  greater numbers of visitors of all ages and abilities than ever before because of the annual support we receive from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation. This incredibly impactful gift – and the generosity that this gift will undoubtedly inspire in other supporters – will transform the way we reach audiences.”

The Campaign for the New Bruce Committee is Co-Chaired by John Ippolito, Susan V. Mahoney, and Heidi Brake Smith and includes Frederic H. Brooks, Patricia W. Chadwick, Maryann Keller Chai, William Deutsch, Nancy A. Duffy, Kathy Epstein, Becky Gillan, Robert B. Goergen, Sachiko Goodman, Tracy Holton, Karen Keegan, Jan Rogers Kniffen, Arianne F. Kolb, Robert H. Lawrence, Jr., Cricket Lockhart, James B. Lockhart III, and Deborah Simon. 

To join these and other supporters of the Bruce Museum, please contact Whitney Lucas Rosenberg, Director of Development and Institutional Advancement, at 203-413-6765 or wrosenberg@brucemuseum.orgor Barbara Tavrow, Campaign Director, at 203-249-8225 or btavrow@brucemuseum.org. 

About Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation

The Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation is committed to inspiring philanthropy and community service by creating awareness, offering guidance and leading by example to show the world what giving can do. Since launching the Foundation in 2001, Steven and Alexandra Cohen have generously funded local and national nonprofit organizations that uplift the communities in which they serve. The Cohens’ giving reflects their personal connection with the causes that inspire them. To learn more, please visit steveandalex.orgor follow the Foundation on Facebook,Twitter, and Instagram.  

First Selectman Peter Tesei on ‘the Treasure of the Bruce’, Greenwich Sentinel | By Anne W. Semmes

First Selectman Peter J. Tesei has presided over the Town of Greenwich, its governing, its 62,000 residents, and its special partnership with of the Bruce Museum and its collection for the past 12 years. 

As a fifth generation resident, Tesei has deep roots in Greenwich – he knows the historic imprint that generous individuals have had on the Town. “It was Robert Bruce who left his mansion to the Town,” he tells, “Also, Robert Bruce and his sister built the old Town Hall, on Greenwich Avenue, which now houses the Greenwich Arts Council and other nonprofit groups.”

Looking back on that Gilded Age, Tesei sees how “very successful affluent residents making gifts to the Town were transforming it from a more rural, agricultural community to a suburban community.” Today, he cites William L. Richter, with his $15 million donation to the soon-to-be New Bruce, as a “twenty-first century Robert Bruce.” 

It was Tesei who introduced Richter to the Bruce Museum and to Peter C. Sutton, the longtime Executive Director now serving as Director Emeritus. “In this role as the Town’s chief elected official,” Tesei says, “you have to be a champion for all of its people and for its institutions.” So, when the call came from resident Richter, with his desire to gift the Town, Tesei saw a “natural synergy in timing” with the expansion plans of the Bruce. 

The Bruce receives some 10 to 15 percent of its annual budget from the Town. Tesei lists the Town’s contributions for the fiscal year 2019-2020 as $875,000 for ongoing operations and $824,000 for capital improvements to the existing Museum building.”

“The expansion of the Bruce with its exquisite collection,” says Tesei, “is further reinforcing Greenwich as a world-class community, a global destination. Being in close proximity to our Harbor and Downtown, and located within Bruce Park and near to Roger Sherman Baldwin Park, which has become the event venue for our town, the New Bruce is an attraction that will spur cultural enrichment and economic activity.” 

“The proposed design lends itself to the topography of the site. It incorporates the natural elements and provides natural light into the building. There’s a certain elegance to it, and it’s inviting because it has this public space that you can come into, where we can say ‘let’s go look at this wonderful program or exhibition and then let’s go have a cup of coffee.’”

“It’s very beneficial as we look to attract people to our Town that this amenity is here for our children – not every child has the opportunity to go into New York to the wonderful institutions that are there. And this treasure of the Bruce affords them that ability through their schools or through their parents being able to take them because it’s very accessible.”

Tesei sees the Bruce Museum as providing, “a unique and special way to support this cultural enrichment. So, Bill Richter has really set the standard that others, I believe, are going to follow because they see the same value that this Museum has for the broader community. It’s really a tremendous legacy for those who have the ability to contribute to make the New Bruce a reality.”

Cricket and Jim Lockhart Champion the Bruce Museum, Greenwich Sentinel | Anne W. Semmes

Jim and Cricket Lockhart

At the Bruce Museum, Cricket and Jim Lockhart are often cited as one of the Museum’s “first families.” Their love for the Bruce is shared by their Greenwich children and grandchildren. On a recent visit, their oldest grandson, age seven, was fascinated by the Museum’s annual iCreate exhibition of work by high school artists. “He was looking at each painting, analyzing each, picking out his favorite, and wanting to know how old the artist was,” notes Grandfather Jim. Treated to a requested pad and colored pencils from the Museum store, “He was drawing in the car going home.” 

Museum-going is a Lockhart legacy. Cricket had grandparents living near the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Every trip to see them brought a tour of the Met. When visiting his Westchester-based grandparents, Jim was taken to the Bruce. “It’s in the blood,” he notes. “We’ve lived in a lot of different places, and we’ve always gone to museums.” 

Today, Jim serves as the Chair of the Museum’s Board of Trustees, while Cricket serves on the Campaign for the New Bruce Committee and is one of the Co-Chairs of the Campaign launch event, Bruce ConsTRUCKS on Sunday, September 8, a community-wide celebration of the Museum’s transformative renovation and construction project. They are both championing the giant step the Bruce is taking in its expansion. 

“It’s the aesthetics,” says Cricket. “You’re going to have it looking out toward the Sound – the entrance, with a big sculpture pathway.” 

“We’re going to have much larger permanent art galleries – in fact, four of them,” adds Jim, “and one big giant changing gallery so we’ll be able to do larger-scale exhibitions. We’ll be able to fill that up with the many great art collections in Town that are being promised. Expanding the science wing will be extremely important as well.”

“It is very rare to have a combination science and art museum,” cites Cricket. “We’re fortunate to have a dual mission like that, with all the educational elements combined.”

“The core of the Museum is education,” notes Jim, “because that’s where we’re really helping the community, not just Greenwich, but Westchester, all of Fairfield County, and New York City, too. We have about 25,000 kids come through a year. We’re hoping to double that with a much expanded education area.”

“We are going to have a whole new program called Engineering Tomorrow, an incredible engineering program for high school students,” says Cricket, “It’s a first of its kind.” 

“But there are also programs for children as young as age two; programs for people of all abilities, people with memory loss and their caretakers. So, it’s a very comprehensive program that the Bruce has, and they’re going to enhance it tremendously. Then we have the Brucemobile program that goes out to schools and also the Bruce’s Seaside Center at Greenwich Point Park, which is absolutely amazing.”

Meanwhile, the Lockhart’s daughter, Grace Djuranovic, is cultivating a younger generation of Museum members, the Bruce Contemporaries. “It’s growing by leaps and bounds,” says Cricket. “They already have 85 members. They tour people’s collections, they do crawls of different galleries on Greenwich Avenue and in Stamford, and support the Seaside Center’s science and natural history programs with ‘Sips on the Sound,’ a wonderful event each summer.”

“I’ve always loved the science,” says Jim. “Our Science Curator, Dr. Daniel Ksepka, has done a great job, and his plans for the new science galleries are going to be really good.” 

“He’s doing an installation from the Ice Age in the new permanent science gallery,” notes Cricket, “What this area looked like, going back in time. They’ll have dioramas – very student- and child-friendly. It’s going to be tremendously interactive.” 

“It gets kids away from their little iPads. It’s not only history and science. It’s civilization. Things that are new and contemporary,” says Cricket. “We’re even going to have a feathered dinosaur,” adds Jim. 

“If you wander through here in the morning, you see these kids listening to someone explain the painting, or something in science, the shark exhibition at the moment, and the kids really love it. That’s the next generation. That’s what a lot of our donors are looking at, the idea of an expanded education opportunity here.”