BALTIMORE, MD.- The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) today announced an extraordinary promised gift of more than $10 million from philanthropists Amy and Marc Meadows for the sole purpose of supporting arts education at the museum, with a focus on K-12 schoolchildren in Baltimore City and the surrounding region. This gift from the Stoneridge Foundation of Amy and Marc Meadows will establish the Amy and Marc Meadows Education Endowment, which will progressively distribute funds toward five of the six core educational initiatives (outlined below) until such time as the full endowment, including earned interest, is dispersed to the museum. The cumulative financial impact of the endowment makes it the single largest gift to the BMA in its 110-year history.

Amy and Marc Meadows have spent most of their personal and professional lives engaged with the arts and maintained strong commitments to education, witnessing first-hand the power, joy, and great benefit of the arts on young learners. They also established a longstanding relationship with the BMA with Amy Meadows serving for many years as an active Trustee of the museum’s Board and now as an Honorary Trustee. She has also supported the museum’s current director Asma Naeem throughout her career, beginning with her first curatorial role at the National Portrait Gallery. The promised gift announced today is the result of careful consideration of the BMA’s dedication to education initiatives and on the positive impact it can have on creating lifelong appreciation for the arts.

“The phrase ‘art patrons’ does not begin to describe the passion, intellectual rigor, and peerless insights that Amy and Marc have shared with me over the many years of our friendship. With the Amy and Marc Meadows Education Endowment, the BMA will give Baltimore and our communities the resources they deserve: a thoughtful range of programs and opportunities for students, families and caregivers, and lifelong learners,” said Asma Naeem, the BMA’s Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director. “Arts education has been proven, many times over, to have a positive effect on children and teens, supporting critical thinking skills, emotional regulation, and creating pathways to successful academic performance across disciplines. It is an understatement to say that I look forward to what we will be able to achieve together through this transformational gift and model of civic and art philanthropy. We are immensely grateful to Amy and Marc for their generosity, collaboration, and forward-looking vision.

The funds are earmarked for six core initiatives designed to support engagement with the arts, to spur personal enjoyment of and professional opportunities within museums, and to encourage the next generation of museumgoers. This includes support for:

• Transportation for organized public school trips to the BMA

• Maintaining Free Family Sundays and other access-oriented public engagement activities

• Expanding the Close Encounters program with a 2-year pass system that creates opportunities for free attendance among family, caregiver, and friend networks

• Developing an internship program for teaching apprentices in museum education

• Creating a speaker series for adults focused on the future of museums and community

• Endowing future additional positions for museum educators

Of the gift, Amy and Marc Meadows said, “We seek to make a difference for others with experiences that we ourselves enjoyed.” Amy further added, “The Baltimore Museum of Art has been an integral part of my life since attending afternoon art classes during my elementary school years. My studies and career are an outgrowth of my time at the museum. I am so pleased that Marc and I will enable children, young adults, and adults the chance to absorb the wonders of the museum as I did.” Mark noted, “The introduction to art and architecture during my childhood was of critical influence in how I saw the world around me, as well as the friends I made along the way. Learning and experiencing art and culture has tremendous impact on both character and social development. Amy and I are so pleased that with our gift, both school children and adults alike will be able to enjoy and grow with exposure to the art and treasures of the BMA.”

The Amy and Marc Meadows Education Endowment builds on other recent major investments in education at the BMA. In fall 2023, the museum reopened the newly renovated Patricia and Mark Joseph Education Center, which was designed to expand hands-on artmaking and interactive engagement for families, students, and art lovers of all ages at the museum. The 5,625-square-foot center features new and refurbished classrooms for both dry and wet artmaking; a Wall of Wonder with tactile and digital displays that invite visitors to consider creative processes; and a series of participatory art installations by internationally acclaimed artists Derrick Adams, Mary Flanagan, and Pablo Helguera. The BMA has also made education a core strategic pillar of activity under Naeem’s leadership, to be further realized with the appointment of Elisabeth Callihan as Chief Education Officer.

Amy Frenkil Meadows has been a professional art consultant and marketing and development consultant for non-profits for most of her professional career. Born and raised in Baltimore, she completed her undergraduate studies at the New College of Hofstra University in New York and worked toward an M.A. in art history at the University of Chicago. She was employed by several commercial galleries in Washington, D.C., including Fisher Galleries and Duncan & Duncan Chinese Antiques where she appraised Asian works for senior staff of the Carter White House, before opening her own contemporary gallery, the Art Connection. Amy has consulted for the National Building Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery, Octagon House, and the French-American Committee for the Restoration of the Statue of Liberty. She also served as a strategic planning and marketing consultant for her husband’s clients at Meadows Design Office.

Amy has served on the boards of the Women’s National Democratic Club, The Friends of the Washington Review of the Arts, the Board of Governors of the Johns Hopkins Heart and Vascular Institute, and the Washington Animal Rescue League. Her extensive engagement with arts organizations includes serving as a commissioner of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, where she chaired their Collections and Advancement committees; serving on the Executive Committee of the Phillips Collection; and volunteering as a docent for more than 20 years at the National Gallery of Art, and The Kreeger Museum. She is also the past chair of the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Public Engagement Committee and currently serves as an Honorary Trustee. Amy Meadows is also a past President and current member of the Board of the Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens; a current President of the Evermay Club; and a member of the Smithsonian Women’s Committee.

Marc Meadows is an art director and professional graphic designer in Washington, D.C. A native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, he graduated with a double major in art history and studio arts from the University of Michigan (B.F.A., ’79). After working on the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum for Staples & Charles, he established his own studio in 1981 which transitioned to become the Meadows Design Office by 1996. In his 44 years, Marc has created award-winning books and publications for a variety of non-profit associations, museums, organizations, and trade publishers such as the World Wildlife Fund annual reports for 22 consecutive years, The International Fund for Animal Welfare, and The World Bank, among numerous other clients. He was also art director of Garden Design magazine (1989–96), as well as creative director and designer for American Farmland, The Brookings Review, Foreign Policy, The Hoover Digest, and Inside Smithsonian Research. In addition to the design studio, Marc was co-owner of Archetype Press until 1996, afterward forming Meadows Press, a book producing company where he creates heavily illustrated volumes on topics related to art, architecture, cooking, and gardening for publishers—most recently American Shrine: The Architecture of Presidential Commemoration for the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (UMass Press, 2025).

Marc Meadows has sat on the board and served as chair of Friends of the Washington Review of the Arts and has served as board member for The American Friends of Blérancourt (a Franco-American museum in France and former home of Anne Morgan). Marc is a volunteer at Johns Hopkins–Sibley Hospital, and has served on their Patient Family Advisory Committee. He is a member of the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, Beaune Chapter. Marc and Amy, are ardent supporters of many nonprofit organizations such as the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, the Baltimore Museum of Art, National Public Radio, Washington Animal Rescue League, The Society of the Four Arts, and The Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach.