Patricia Doxsey is reporting for the Daily Freeman Bard College's Center for Curatorial Studies, August 26, announced the creation of a $50 million endowment, made up of a $25 million gift from the Marieluise [Marie Louise] Hessel Foundation plus a matching commitment of $25 million from investor-philanthropist George Soros as part of the school's $1 billion endowment drive. Established in 1990, CCS Bard was the first institution of its kind in the country dedicated exclusively to curatorial studies, an interdisciplinary field exploring the historical, intellectual and social conditions that inform contemporary art exhibition-making and practice. College officials called the endowment, unprecedented. It was initiated by the Hessel Foundation in honor of the center’s 30th anniversary and will enable the center to continue its work in perpetuity. Hessel was a CCS Bard co-founder. In the late 1980s, the Hessel Foundation entrusted its collection of contemporary art to Bard and laid the groundwork for the creation of CCS Bard in 1990. The Hessel Foundation has supported CCS Bard with several gifts, including the construction of the Hessel Museum of Art in 2006 and the expansion of the library, special collections and archives in 2015, and more. Read the full story in the Daily Freeman.