Patricia Mainardi and the Dahesh Museum of Art

The Dahesh Museum (now the Dahesh Museum of Art) opened to the public in January 1995 with a mission to collect and exhibit 19th-century European Academic art, the only American museum to specialize in this area. An equally important part of the mission was to educate the public, including a broad range of professionals (art historians, artists, teachers and others) about this generally neglected field of art history.

Even before opening, the Museum sought partners in these aims, and we have been fortunate to connect with other museums, universities, collectors and art historians who either secretly or professionally shared our love for Academic art. Pat Mainardi was from the beginning a truly significant partner in so many ways. She has been for years one of the strongest voices calling for the "rehabilitation" of 19th-century Academic art and has been -- and continues to be -- an active supporter of the Museum.

As a publishing scholar, her articles and books have set a high standard of excellence, one that the Museum has striven to match in its own publications. She has nurtured a generation of students in this very rich field, and many of those students have played curatorial and scholarly roles in the Museum's activities. Her lectures, including those for the Museum, have been models of wit and learning, engaging audiences in the pleasures of Academic art.

Pat played a significant role in the founding of the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art, and its birth, coincidental with the Museum's beginning, has created a remarkable and lasting working relationship between our two institutions.

All past and current staff and Trustees of the Dahesh Museum of Art join in thanking Pat for her support and friendship, her scholarly and good-humored presence, and her winning persuasion in the service of Academic art.

Amira Zahid, Trustee
David Farmer, Founding Director
Dahesh Museum of Art