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Museum receives stunning gift of $1.7M from gift shop volunteer

The Great Hall at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Image courtesy of Detroit Institute of Arts.
The Great Hall at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Image courtesy of Detroit Institute of Arts.

 

DETROIT (AP) – A former museum shop volunteer and Detroit Public Schools art teacher has donated more than $1.7 million to the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Museum director Salvador Salort-Pons announced Tuesday that Elizabeth Verdow’s gift will help enhance the facility’s contemporary art collection. A press release from the Detroit Institute of Arts says Verdow stipulated that $1.26 million of the $1.71 million gift be used for contemporary art acquisitions of painting and sculpture and that the remaining $450,000 go toward the museum’s operating endowment.

Verdow taught art in the Detroit Public Schools system throughout her teaching career and volunteered at the Detroit Institute of Art from 1990 to 2009.

She died in June 2014 at age 86.

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