The Nathan Cummings Foundation was endowed by Nathan Cummings (1896–1985), founder of

Consolidated Foods The Sara Lee Corporation was an American consumer-goods company based in Downers Grove, Illinois. It had operations in more than 40 countries and sold its products in over 180 countries. Its international operations were headquartered in Utrecht ...

, later renamed

Sara Lee Sara may refer to: Arts, media and entertainment Film and television * Sara (1992 film), ''Sara'' (1992 film), 1992 Iranian film by Dariush Merhjui * Sara (1997 film), ''Sara'' (1997 film), 1997 Polish film starring Bogusław Linda * Sara (2010 ...

. Cummings was also a prominent

art collector A private collection is a privately owned collection of works (usually artworks) or valuable items. In a museum or art gallery context, the term signifies that a certain work is not owned by that institution, but is on loan from an individual ...

and supporter of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

causes. In his lifetime, Cummings made contributions to hospitals, universities, and the arts. His endowment created the Nathan Cummings Arts Center at Stanford University and the Joanne and Nathan Cummings Art Center at

Connecticut College Connecticut College (Conn College or Conn) is a private liberal arts college in New London, Connecticut. It is a residential, four-year undergraduate institution with nearly all of its approximately 1,815 students living on campus. The college w ...

in New London. He made major contributions to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, to the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York, and to the Art Institute of Chicago. The foundation received most of his estate (then estimated at $200 million) upon his death in 1985.

Shareholder activism

The Nathan Cummings Foundation is one of eight institutional investors represented by the Shareholder Rights Projects, which worked to present shareholder declassification proposals in

S&P 500 The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices. As of ...

annual meetings.

References

External links

* {{Coord, 40, 45, 22, N, 73, 59, 54, W, display=title Arts foundations based in the United States Arts organizations based in New York City Organizations established in 1949 1949 establishments in the United States