In other can’t-take-it-with-you news, the McNay, the San Antonio Museum of Art and the Witte Museum have each received $800,000 bequests from the estate of Frances and Louis Wagner to endow lecture series. The Wagners were longtime members of these institutions and had underwritten a number of special lectures in the past.
The San Antonio Museum of Art received an initial gift from the Wagners in 2000 to establish the Louis A. and Frances B. Wagner Lecture Series. This most recent gift added $800,000 in principal to this existing endowment, and according to SAMA Director Katie Luber, “it will continue to allow the San Antonio Museum of Art to present several diverse and enriching lectures annually from some of the world’s most renowned experts in every aspect of the arts.” On February 21, there’s a lecture on “The Chinese Art of Cricket- Keeping” by John Johnston, SAMA’s Coates-Cowden-Brown Curator of Asian Art.