Phillips Collection in Washington Receives $10 Million Gift From the Boltons
The Phillips Collection, an art museum in Washington, D.C., has received a US$10 million gift from Beatriz and Graham Bolton. The museum announced the gift on 12 November 2026.
ArtNews reported that the gift is the largest ever given to the museum by a single individual in its 105-year history. The money will launch a new fund, the Beatriz and Graham Bolton Global Vision Fund.
The fund will pay for exhibitions, loans of artworks between museums, and partnerships with museums, galleries, embassies and cultural groups around the world. A loan is when one institution lends a work to another for a set period, often for a show.
The gift will also create a permanent job at the museum. It will endow the post of chief of education and responsive learning, which means the money will keep paying for the role over time. The post will carry the Boltons' name.
The museum's education gallery will be renamed the Peggy Bolton Community Gallery. Peggy Bolton was Graham Bolton's mother. The gallery is where the museum runs much of its community programming for visitors of all ages.
Beatriz Bolton has served on the Phillips Collection's board of trustees since 2022. Trustees are the volunteer members who oversee a museum's finances and direction, and who usually help raise money for it.
The Phillips Collection published its announcement on the same day, and it also released a Spanish-language version.
For visitors, the changes will show up in two places: the shows and loans the museum organises, and the classes and family programmes run from the education gallery. The museum has not yet said when the first exhibitions or partnerships under the new fund will open.
