(New York, January 10, 2012)—A generous pledge from Marina Kellen French, through the Marina Kellen French Foundation, has endowed a curatorship in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, with a particular emphasis on Central European decorative arts, it was announced today by Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Museum.
Wolfram Koeppe is the first Marina Kellen French Curator at the Metropolitan Museum, effective immediately. He joined the Museum’s Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts nearly 20 years ago and was promoted to Curator in 2005. He has organized exhibitions and gallery installations including Art of the Royal Court: Treasures in Pietre Dure from the Palaces of Europe (2008), Vienna Circa 1780: An Imperial Silver Service Rediscovered (2010), the current long-term display Fabergé from the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation Collection, and the upcoming exhibition Seductive Luxury and Innovation: Furniture by Abraham and David Roentgen (fall 2012).
Marina Kellen French is the daughter of Anna-Maria Kellen, an Honorary Trustee of the Metropolitan Museum, and the late Stephen M. Kellen. Both of her parents were Benefactors of the Museum.
The family’s generosity to the Metropolitan Museum over many years has been broad in scope and profound in effect—from acquisitions of works of art for the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts and the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art, to special exhibitions of German art.
Marina French is a managing director of The Metropolitan Opera, and is a trustee of both Carnegie Hall and WNET. She also serves on the Trustees’ Council of the National Gallery of Art, and is a member of the advisory board of the Hospital for Special Surgery. Like her parents, she is active with The American Academy in Berlin, where she serves on the board of trustees, and she is a supporter of German culture on an international scale, particularly exhibitions of German art. She is a graduate of the Brearley School in New York City, the New York School of Interior Design, and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
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January 10, 2012
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