$25 million naming gift to gallery from philanthropist Darla Moore

The Shed has named its Level 2 Gallery as The Darla Moore Gallery, honoring a transformative $25 million unrestricted gift from philanthropist and founding board member Darla Moore.

This landmark contribution, announced, bolsters the institution’s long-term sustainability and fuels its mission to foster boundary-pushing art in New York City.

Moore, a South Carolina native born in 1954 on her family’s farm in Lake City, embodies a lifetime of philanthropy rooted in bold investments that transform communities, education, and culture.

Rising from a cotton, soybean, and tobacco farm—where her father taught and coached—she earned a political science degree from the University of South Carolina in 1975 and an MBA from George Washington University in 1981 before conquering Wall Street as a managing director at Chemical Bank and later president of Rainwater, Inc.

Dubbed “The Toughest Babe in Business” on Fortune’s cover in 1997—the first woman so profiled—she amassed influence through savvy bankruptcy financing and high-stakes deals yet channeled her success into giving that prioritizes rigor and impact.

Her philanthropy began accelerating in the late 1990s, with a $25 million donation in 1998 that renamed the University of South Carolina’s business school in her honor—the first U.S. business school named for a woman—followed by $45 million more in 2005 and additional gifts like $5 million in 2011 for the McNair Center for Aerospace Innovation and Research, matched by the state.

Moore extended this educational vision to Clemson University with a $10 million gift in 2003, renaming its School of Education after her father Eugene T. Moore and launching the Moore Scholars Program for equity-focused research on underprivileged schools.

Further, she endowed Claflin University’s music department with $1 million in 2012 and created the $5 million Darla Moore Scholarship at Francis Marion University in 2021, always framing gifts as “investments” demanding measurable returns in opportunity.

Beyond academia, Moore’s giving revitalizes her roots. In 2002, she founded Moore Farms Botanical Garden on 1,000 acres of family farmland in Lake City, cultivating rare collections such as 59 Taxodium taxa and Magnolia grandiflora cultivars, while hosting community events that drew 14,000 visitors by 2019, with proceeds benefiting local nonprofits.

She launched the annual ArtFields festival in 2013 via her Darla Moore Foundation, injecting millions into Lake City’s economy through art competitions, tourism, and downtown restoration—including converting a Walmart into The Continuum education center—turning a “bombed out” town into a cultural hub. As founder and chair of the Charleston Parks Conservancy, she enhances public green spaces, reflecting her belief in accessible beauty as a community anchor.

Moore’s boards underscore this ethos: from Teach for America and NYU Medical School to Santa Fe Institute and now The Shed, where she championed its vision from inception alongside Dan Doctoroff. “Art is a catalyst for transformation,” she said of her latest gift, echoing support for The Shed since its 2019 opening, which welcomed 250,000 visitors last year alone.

Jonathan Tisch, board chair, praised her “indomitable spirit”; CEO Meredith “Max” Hodges called it “trust,”enabling risk-taking, like the free NYC premiere of Doug Aitken’s Lightscape in the new gallery come June 25.

This $25 million—unrestricted for flexibility—caps a career in which Moore, now chairman of her foundation, has given tens of millions to preserve battlegrounds, fund human services through the Palmetto Institute, and break barriers, from Augusta National membership with Condoleezza Rice to South Carolina Business Hall of Fame induction.

Her Shed commitment, born of early faith in its “New York” innovation, ensures that artists and audiences continue to experience the entirely new she has long enabled elsewhere.