$10 million gift from Emily Pulitzer to endow leadership position at Art Museum

A donation from Emily Rauh Pulitzer will endow a new position at the St. Louis Art Museum.

The museum said that $10 million from Pulitzer will pay the salary for a position known as the Emily Rauh Pulitzer Deputy Director and Chief Curator.

It will include “many of the responsibilities that Pulitzer held when she joined the museum in 1964 as its sole curator,” the museum said in a news release.

The museum is conducting an international search with the goal of filling the position in 2024.

“With this generous commitment, Emmy continues her legacy of support for the museum,” said Min Jung Kim, the Barbara B. Taylor director of the museum, said in the statement. “The Emily Rauh Pulitzer Deputy Director and Chief Curator will play a pivotal role in shaping the museum’s future, ensuring that our collections and exhibitions continue to inspire and educate for generations to come.”

The deputy director and chief curator will oversee eight curatorial departments, as well as the art preparation and installation, conservation, registration and exhibitions departments — leading a team of more than 60 professionals in total, the museum said.

The commitment from Pulitzer comes two years after she announced another pledge — a gift of 22 works of art, including paintings by Picasso and Miro and a sculpture by Brancusi.

The St. Louis Art Museum has received more than 140 artworks from Pulitzer, her late husband, Joseph Pulitzer Jr., and his first wife, Louise Vauclain Pulitzer.

The Pulitzer family made its fortune in publishing and formerly owned the Post-Dispatch.

It sold the publishing company to Lee Enterprises in 2005 for about $1.4 billion.